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DAYS AND WAYS 
IN OLD BOSTON 



EDITED BT 

WILLIAM S. ROSSITER 



Drawings by Malcolm Eraser and 
Jacques Reich of the Art Staff of 
the Century Magazine, New York 



BOSTON 

R. H. STEARNS AND COMPANY 
1915 



Pref a ce 



With this explanation we submit it to our 
friends with the hope that those who personally 
or through family ties are identified with old 
Boston will find it a welcome and permanent 
addition to the already considerable literature 
relating to the city, and that many others, with- 
out such associations, will derive both pleasure 
and inspiration from "Days and Ways in Old 
Boston," 

R. H. Stearns and Company. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE YEAR EIGHTEEN FORTY SEVEN 11 

Bt William S. Rossiter 

OTHER DAYS AND WAYS IN BOSTON AND 

CAMBRIDGE 27 

By Thomas Wentworth Higginson 

RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD BOSTON 39 

From a Conversation with a Boston Lady 
OF THE Period 

THE OLD BOSTON WATER FRONT 45 

By Frank H. Forbes 

THE OLD ROSEWOOD DESK 61 

By Maud Howe Elliott 

ADVERTISING IN BOSTON, 1847-1914 77 

By Robert Lincoln O'Brien 

BOSTON AS A SHOPPING CITY 83 

By Heloise E. Hersey 

AN HISTORIC CORNER 91 

By Walter K. Watkins 

OLD BOSTON BANKS 133 

From Information Furnished by Francis R. 
Hart 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Celebration on the Common of Introduction of 

City Water, 1848 Frontispiece V^ 

The Adams House in 1847 15 

Temple Place in 1860 16 

Railroad Stations in Boston in 1850: 

Eastern 18 

FiTCHBURG 19 

Boston & Maine 19 

Boston & Lowell 20 

Boston & Worcester 22 

Old Colony 23 

Boston & Providence 23 

Railroad Crossing, Back Bay, 1836 21 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson 26 

James Russell Lowell 28 

Wendell Phillips 29 

Map of Section of Boston, 1814 33 

Beacon Street Mall, about 1850 35 

Louis Agassiz 36 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 37 

Bird's-eye View of Boston Common, about 1850... 43 

Old Boston Water Front 47 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe 60 

Theodore Parker 71 

Part of Evening Transcript, 1847 79 

State House from the Common, 1836 82 

Mansion erected by Hezekiah Usher 96 

Waitstill Winthrop 98 

The Usher Tomb 100 

Wedding Gown (1735) of Mistress Roger Price. . . 103 

Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf 104 

Map of Boston, 1722 105 

The John Hancock Mansion 106 



Ill us trations 



Map of Present Temple Place Section, 1722 107 

Review on the Common, 1768 108 

Boston Common, 1799 110 

Chables Bulfinch 112 

Common Street, now Tremont, looking South, 1800 113 

Common Street, now Tremont, looking North, 1800 115 

Beiacon Street from the Common, about 1812 118 

Announcement of the Washington Gardens 119 

Masonic Temple, Tremont Street and Temple Place, 

about 1875 124 

Amos Bronson Alcott 125 

Tremont Street from Park Street Church, 1830. . 126 

Margaret Fuller, the Marchioness Ossoli 127 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 128 

Judge John Lowell 129 

Richard H. Stearns 129 

Tremont Street and Temple Place, 1914 131 

State Street in 1804 133 

Massachusetts Bank, 1800 139 

First National Bank, 1914 139 

State Street, 1837 141 

Court Street, showing Old Colony Trust Company 143 



10 



Days and Ways in Old 

Boston 

THE YEAR EIGHTEEN FORTY SEVEN 

By William S. Rossiter 

War and politics conspired to make 1847 a 
year of much importance in the history of the 
United States. With the admission of Iowa De- 
cember 28, 1846, the Union consisted of twenty- 
nine states and one territory. Part of Texas 
was in dispute, and the area which extends 
from the Rio Grande to the Oregon Hne and 
now includes the states of California, Nevada, 
Utah, New Mexico and Arizona and much of 
Colorado and Texas, comprising in all half a 
million square miles, was still a part of the 
RepubUc of Mexico. It was for the prize of this 
coveted territory that war was declared by the 
United States, and in 1847 the assault upon Mexi- 
can domain was carried to a successful conclusion. 

National Events and Conditions 

The pecuUar importance in federal history of the 
year '47 did not arise from any deliberate purpose 
of Congress or the administration, but was an 
incidental result of the political exigencies of that 
period. This result was two fold: 

The pro-slavery leaders determined to extend — 
at the expense of Mexico — the area from which to 
erect future slave holding states. This immedi- 
ate object failed, but the southern leaders builded 
11 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

better than they realized. Victories in Mexico, 
culminating in 1847, added to the United States 
a section of the continent which was never avail- 
able for slavery but which became almost immedi- 
ately indispensable to the growth and destiny of 
the RepubUc. 

The Mexican War, by the brilhant achievements 
of the American armies, aroused the pride and 
fired the martial spirit of the people, especially 
in the South. This successful war was a factor, 
probably of considerable importance, in determin- 
ing the attitude of the southern states in the in- 
ternal dissensions which soon led to civil war. 
In '47 the war news was a long succession of 
victories. In February General Taylor won the 
hard fought battle of Buena Vista. In March 
General Scott captured Vera Cruz. In April he 
won the battle of Cerro Gordo, while the crown- 
ing events of the war, the storming of Chapul- 
tepec and the capture of the City of Mexico came 
in September. 

There are few twelve-month periods, therefore, 
in the century and a third elapsed since the Re- 
public was organized, which have affected more 
powerfully its territory and its destiny. 

In the year 1847 James K. Polk was President 
of the United States . The total population in that 
year according to an estimate made four years 
later by the superintendent of the Seventh 
Census, was 21,154,144. The inhabitants were 
still principally located in the original thirteen 
states. Many, however, were already setthng 
12 



The Year Eighteen Forty Seven 

in the rich agricultural areas which extended 
northward from Tennessee to the Lakes, and 
which benefited by the earliest immigration 
movement after the adoption of the constitution 
and the close of General Wayne's campaigns 
against the Indians. So strong was the tide of 
immigration that by 1854 not only were CaU- 
fornia and Wisconsin members of the Union, but 
Kansas, Utah, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, 
Washington and New Mexico had advanced to the 
dignity of federal territories. 

When the social conditions of that period are 
compared with those prevailing more than half 
a century later, the nation seems to have been 
conspicuous in '47 for plain living, and the pref- 
erence shown by a homogeneous population for 
country life as compared with that in towns 
and cities. In 1850, indeed, three quarters of 
the population of the North Atlantic States 
dwelt in communities of less than 5,000 inhabi- 
tants and one quarter in large towns and cities, 
proportions which sixty-four years later are prac- 
tically reversed. 
^'''^New York contained about 475,000 inhabitants. 
Brooklyn, not yet a part of greater New York's 
vast population, was a modest independent city 
of approximately 75,000 souls, reached only by 
small ferry boats, after long periods of waiting. 
Chicago was a newly founded prairie town of 
about 20,000 inliabitants. Philadelphia, with its 
independent suburban towns, included about 
300,000 people. 

13 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 



Boston in 1847 

Boston was a small city, — as we now regard 
cities, — of 130,000 inhabitants, but this total did 
not include the quiet country population of Rox- 
bury and Dorchester. Roxbury, however, by a 
vote of 837 to 129 had just resolved to become a 
city. Somerville had been set off from Charles- 
town but five years before, in 1842, and when 
made an independent town, it contained neither 
a post office, hotel, lawyer, clergyman nor physi- 
cian. Brookline, now famous as a beautiful and 
wealthy suburb of 30,000 inhabitants, was a 
village of 2400 population. 

Boston was not only small in population, but 
small in area. The broad streets and avenues 
which now stretch from the Public Garden, and 
are known as the Back Bay, sixty years ago were 
represented by open water or marsh. In fact, the 
Public Garden had^ but recently been reclaimed 
from a damp and undeveloped tract seemingly 
hopeless for any practical use. Where Beacon 
Street now descends the hill to stretch into the 
Back Bay district, was the famous "Mill Dam" 
connecting Boston with the narrow roadway that 
led to Brookline. This strip of land was wide 
enough to accommodate only a few buildings. 
Facing the Common on Beacon Street still lingered 
the John Hancock mansion, a famous old colonial 
home, Tremont and Boylston were residence 
streets, as were also Temple Place, Summer, Win- 
ter and Franklin Streets. Retail business — 
14 



The Year Eighteen Forty Seven 

and as we judge business today it was very deco- 
rous and deliberate — was confined principally to 
Washington Street, Scollay Square (including 
Tremont Row), Hanover, Court and State Streets, 
to which of course should be added the water front 
from which came in generous measure so much 
of Boston's material prosperity during the era of 
American commerce which culminated in the 
early fifties. 

In 1847 the Revere House was completed and 
opened, and was regarded as easily the largest 
and finest hotel in New England. ) On June 29th, 
when President Polk visited Boston as the guest 
of the city, he was lodged at this new and sump- 
tuous hotel. Other Boston hotels of that period 
were the Tremont House, Adams House, the 
American House and United States Hotel. 

Aside from the State House, public buildings 
were few and of simple architecture when judged 
by the standards of later years. The Boston 
Post Office was located in the Merchants Exchange 
on State Street. It is difficult, indeed, to realize 
how business could be conducted at all with the 
Hmited mail service available in 1847. In that 
year there was one northern, one southern, and 
one eastern mail daily, three to Lowell, two each 
to Providence, Worcester, Springfield, Hartford 
and Albany. Other towns such as Haverhill, 
and Nashua, Manchester and Concord, N. H., 
averaged about two mails per day. The mail to 
England was received and forwarded twice each 
month. Boston and suburbs at this time sup- 
15 




Temple Place in 1860 
The site of the firat three buildings is now covered by the rear of the present 
ten story building facing Tremont St. 



The Year Eighteen Forty Seven 

ported about 75 newspapers and periodicals of all 
kinds but their aggregate circulation was very 
limited. 

During the year 1847 the Custom House was 
completed, and the corner stone of the Atheneum 
on Beacon Street was laid. On the latter occasion 
the address was delivered by Hon. Josiah Quincy. 
The year was made memorable in Boston by the 
breaking of ground in front of the old State House 
on Washington Street for pij)es to carry water 
through the city. The law which made this 
public improvement possible had passed the 
legislature in April, 1846, and on being submitted 
to a popular vote in Boston was approved 4667 to 
348. It is difficult now to understand how any- 
one could oppose the introduction of public water 
works. Later in the same year the ground was 
broken for an aqueduct at Long Pond, and 
Hon. John Quincy Adams took part in the cere- 
oaonies. 

The revolution in methods of li\ing which has 
occurred since 1847 is perhaps illustrated most 
strikingly by the change in transportation facihties. 
In the year 1847, Boston did not possess even one 
horse car line. Instead, the city and its suburbs 
were cormected by various stage lines which fur- 
nished inadequate service to Roxbury, Cambridge, 
Charlestown, etc. One of these lines of prim- 
itive omnibuses ran at intervals of seven minutes 
from Charlestown to Scollay Square. Another 
line ran along Washington Street to "the Neck." 
Another line of omnibuses starting from Scollay 
2 17 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

Square, connected Boston with Cambridge. Stages 
ran to Maiden and other towns. 

Railroads * 
In 1847 there were eight railroad stations within 
the city limits of Boston. The Eastern Railroad 
which had been opened ten years before, was 71 
miles in length, and subsequently was extended 
to Portland, a distance of 110 miles. The trains of 




Eastern Railroad Station 

this road were reached by crossing a ferry from 
Commercial Street to East Boston. 

The Boston & Maine Railroad was 71 miles in 
length and was opened for travel in 1843. An- 
other division, opened in 1845, passed through 
Reading, Maiden and the suburban towns of that 
section. The Boston terminal, fronting on Hay- 
market Square, was a large brick building two 



♦The illustrations of railroad stations which appear in the follow- 
ing pages are reproductions of wood cuts published in 1852. 

18 




Boston and Mainb Railboad Station 




FrrcHBURQ Railroad Station 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

stories in height, erected on the former bed of a 
canal. This was regarded as more centrally 
located than the other railroad stations. The 
ground floor of the building was utilized as a 
station, but the second floor, or loft, was rented 
by the railroad to a firm of merchants as a 
carpet wareroom. 

This road was declared to be one of the most 




Boston and Lowell Railroad Station 



promising in New England, and it was said 
at that period that if any property of this kind 
could succeed, the Boston & Maine was destined 
to become very valuable. 

The Boston & Lowell Railroad which had been 
opened in 1835 and subsequently extended, was 
said to be the most substantially constructed 
railway in Massachusetts. It was double tracked 
from Boston to Lowell, a distance of 26 miles; 
the tracks were laid on stone sleepers. A branch 
extended to Woburn. In 1847 the fare from 



The Year Eighteen Forty Seven 

Boston to Lowell was 65 cents and there were six 
trains daily, except Sunday, each way. The sta- 
tion in Boston, located at the foot of Lowell 
Street, was a plain brick building with no pre- 
tensions whatever to architectural elegance. 

The Fitchburg Railroad, which had been opened 
for travel on March 5, 1845, extended 49 miles to 
Fitchburg and under lease a small branch was 
operated to Fresh Pond. The Boston terminal 
was located in Charlestown, but a few years 
later the building which now stands on Cause- 
way Street was erected, and was regarded at 
the time as one of the most imposing stations 
in the United States. Between Boston and 
Fitchburg three trains were run daily each way 
(except Sunday). It is interesting to note that 
in '47 the entire rolling stock of the Fitchburg 
Railroad consisted of three six-wheeled loco- 
motives, six eight-wheeled locomotives, 15 pas- 
senger cars, and freight cars which together were 
computed to equal 212 "four-wheeled cars." 

The Boston and Worcester Railroad which con- 
nected the two cities, and covered a distance of 45 
miles, had been opened for travel with a single 
track in 1835. The plain brick spacious station 
was located on the corner of Beach and Kneeland 
Streets. There were four passenger trains daily 
each way between Boston and Worcester. In 
addition, a freight train with passenger cars at- 
tached left Boston for Worcester at noon. This 
road was probably more largely patronized at that 
period than any of the others and by 1845 the in- 
21 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

come of the road was half a million dollars per an- 
num. Worcester at this period had a population of 
approximately 10,000. It was the eastern terminus 
of the Western Railroad which ran from Worces- 
ter through Springfield to Albany, and was thus 
the junction for travelers passing between Boston 
and the Hudson River and Mohawk Valley 
regions. 

Over the Boston and Worcester Railroad there 




Boston and Worcester Railroad Station 



were two trains daily between Boston and New 
York by way of Springfield, and in addition a 
boat train left at five p.m., via Worcester and 
Norwich. 

The Boston and Providence Railroad had been 
in operation since the 4th of June, 1834. The 
station in Boston was a brick structure rather 
more pretentious than the other railway stations 
of that period. There was a two-train service 
22 




Boston and Providbncb Railroad Station 



v.:^-:^-__^.:il::> 





ifeSi^3»;K?Sfe|i 



Old Colony Railroad Station 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

daily between these cities, one train in the morning 
and one in the afternoon in each direction. A 
"steamboat train" ran in the afternoon to Ston- 
ington. This road also operated four trains 
daily each way between Boston and Dedham, 
and two between Boston and Stoughton. 

In 1847 the Old Colony Railroad had been in 
operation for more than a year. This road ex- 
tended from Boston to Fall River and also from 
Braintree to Plymouth, with several short branch 
lines. The station was a three story brick structure 
at the corner of Kneeland and South Streets. 

Transportation between the various railway 
stations in Boston or to different parts of the 
city was effected by the use of stages or "hacks." 
From the Boston and Lowell Station, for ex- 
ample, Cheney, Averill & Company operated an 
omnibus line to State Street. For this trip, with- 
out baggage, 6j cents was charged. Between 
the station and any part of the city proper, 
railroad carriages or omnibuses conveyed pas- 
sengers for 12| cents each. \ 

BOSTONIANS OF^~ME PeRIOD 

In the year '47 the population of Boston was 
composed chiefly of the native stock. The city 
at that period was a distinctively New England 
community in which the citizens held to the con- 
servatism and the comparatively simple habits of 
their ancestors. 

The comment of Josiah P. Quincy writing in 
1881 of the characteristics of Boston in 1800, 
24 



The Year Eighteen Forty Seven 

applies almost equally well to the Boston of 
1847: 

"There were distinctions in Boston society 
which were the inheritance of old colonial and 
provincial relations. 

"The population was chiefly of English descent. 
A type of manhood, ruddier and more robust than 
we are accustomed to meet, was to be seen in 
the streets. The citizens managed to be as com- 
fortable at sixty degrees Fahrenheit as we are at 
seventy, and knew little of dyspepsia and those 
disordered nerve-centres which occasion their 
descendants so much trouble. 

"Many of the peculiarities of Puritanism had 
been softened, and so much of the old severity as 
remained supported the moral standards which 
the God-fearing founders of the State had raised. 
A few men were accepted as the leaders of the 
community and lived under a wholesome convic- 
tion of responsibility for its good behavior. If 
the representatives of good society were in no 
sense cosmopolitan, their provincialism was hon- 
est, manly, and intelligent." 



25 



nllfcWil,! 




Thomas Wentworth HiaaiNaoN 



OTHER DAYS AND WAYS IN BOSTON 
AND CAMBRIDGE* 

By Thomas Wentworth Higginson 

In my youth the only pubHc conveyance be- 
tween Boston and Cambridge was Morse's hourly 
stage. The driver was a big, burly, red-faced 
man and the fare was twenty-five cents each way. 
We drove through the then open region, past Dana 
Hill, to the "Port," where we sometimes had to 
encounter, even on the stage-box, the open ir- 
reverence of the "Port chucks," a phrase applied 
to the boys of that locality, who kept up an antag- 
onism now apparently extinct. Somehow, I do 
not know why, the Port delegation seemed to be 
larger and more pugnacious than the sons of col- 
lege professors and college stewards. As we left 
the village of Old Cambridge, there were but few 
houses along the open road, until we came to the 
village at the Port. Leaving that behind us, we 
drove over more open roads, crossed the river 
by the old West Boston bridge, and came to the 
more thickly settled town of Boston. 

But many people, in those days, walked back 
and forth, in spite of the celebrated Cambridge 
mud, which, I regret to say, still lingers in my na- 
tive town. At the time of Charles Dickens' first 
visit to the States in 1842, one of my boyish play- 

* Written in February, 1911. 

27 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 



mates, reporting a walk he had taken in Cam- 
bridge, said, "the soil clung to me like the women 
to Boz." However, it was very common for 
Boston and Cambridge ladies to walk back and 
forth to visit their friends and do their shoppmg. 
My mother often walked in and out of town. 
Indeed, from the shopping center, then located 
on Washington street, it was not too long a walk 
to Cambridge village or what is now called Har- 
vard Square. 

It was in the forties that I sometimes attended 
evening lectures in Boston. The walk between 
the two towns was to my boyish notions delight- 
ful, though it was a plunge into darkness. Here 
and there, in the distance, sputtered a dim oil 
lamp. But there was much more craft on the 
river, and I can remember being hailed, when 
crossing the bridge, and offered money to pilot a 
coasting schooner to Wat- 
ertown. My old friend 
and schoolmate, James 
Russell Lowell, sometimes 
walked out with me from 
these lectures. On one of 
these walks with Lowell, 
I remember that we saw 
two men leaning over the 
bridge watching, what was 
not uncommon in those 
days, two seals playing in 
the water. As we ap- 
proached we heard one of 



James Rossell Lowell 




In Boston and Cambridge 



the men say to the other, "Wal', now, do you 
'spose them critters are common up this way! 
Be they, or be they?" "Wal'," said the other, 
"I dunno's they be, and I dunno as they be!" 
As we walked on, we speculated on the peculiar- 
ities of the New England rural dialect. 

Before my birth my father had built a house, 
which is still standing, at the head of what was 
then called Professor's Row, but is now known 
as Kirkland Street. This led directly to East 
Cambridge which formed a separate village, and 
I remember once driving there with my father in 
the family chaise. 

My elder brother, who was in college at the 
same time that Wendell Phillips was, used to say 
that Phillips was the only student of that period 
for whom the family carriage was habitually 
sent out to Cambridge on Saturday morning to 
bring him into Boston for Sunday. 

On one end of Boston Common, near Park 
Street, there was once a playground where my 
cousins used to go and play ball; and when I 
went into Boston, I used often to go there and 
watch the game. They played with larger balls 
and larger bats than they do 
now and one of my cousins was 
a leader in all the games. 

The East India trade still lin- 
gered in Boston, I remember, 
and Cambridge boys were some- 
times sent to sea as a punish- 
ment or a cure for naughtiness. 




Wendell Phillips 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

Groups of sailors sometimes strayed through 
Cambridge and there were aromatic smells about 
the Boston wharves. 

My boyish friends were generally connected 
with college families; but I remember one boy 
alone with whom I was forbidden to associate. I 
am now inclined to doubt whether he had com- 
mitted any greater offence than that of having 
gone to sea, and having brought back a little more 
freedom of language than was used by the other 
boys. I remember also that we used as a play- 
ground the large triangle of land which is now 
occupied by Memorial Hall, but then was used 
as an out-door gymnasium, constructed by the 
German professor. Dr. FoUen. There were re- 
mains of the ladders and pits he had arranged and 
we used these pits to hold the collection of apples 
which we brought home as we came from school. 
A little later, as we grew older, we constructed a 
miniature post oflBce in one of the gardens along 
the road where I lived, where we sent letters to 
one another. One of the largest boys, later the 
Rev. J. F. W. Ware, amused himself by writing 
satires about each of us and putting them into 
the post office where each could get his own. 

North Cambridge, as yet, was not, though Por- 
ter's Tavern was a favorite place of resort; and we 
Old Cambridge boys watched with a pleased in- 
terest, not quite undemoralizing, the triumphant 
march of the "Harvard Washington Corps" — 
the college military company — to that hostelry 
for dinner on pubUc days, and their less regular 
30 



In Boston and Cambridge 

and decorous return. Near the Tavern was an 
open field where horse races took place. 

At the time when I entered Harvard College, 
when I was nearly fourteen, my mother and sis- 
ters (my father having died) changed their abode 
to a house which my elder brother had built on 
the present Radcliffe College grounds, and which 
has only recently been taken down to make place 
for a more modern building. Harvard College 
then consisted of but few buildings as compared 
with the present time. There was no Hemenway 
Gymnasium and no Memorial Hall. We had 
what was called Commons, where a student, if he 
wished, could take his meals. These Commons 
were then in the lower part of University Hall. 
The customs of the students were quite different 
from their present habits. In the more boyish 
class of offences, such as breaking of windows, the 
making of bonfires, and hooting under the win- 
dows of unpopular instructors, there has been a 
change so great as to come near extinction. This 
is still more true of the robbing of hen-roosts and 
of market gardens, which would now be consid- 
ered exceedingly bad form, but which was then a 
very common practice. I can recall members of 
my class, afterwards grave dignitaries, who used 
to go out in small parties on autumn evenings 
with large baskets, and bring them back laden with 
apples, pears, grapes and melons from the region 
now known as Belmont. 

A cousin of mine from Virginia, who was in 
college with me, used to go out occasionally and 
31 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

rob a hen-roost and then he would show me how 
deliciously he could cook his booty by suspending it 
from a string before his open fire. The later 
practice of collecting signs and numbers from 
shops and dwelling-houses has, I trust, also gone 
out of fashion. At any rate, it is some years 
since I was obliged to give up having brass 
numbers on my house and substitute painted 
ones. 

We went for our costumes to one Randage, a 
tailor, on Washington Street, Boston, whose store 
was a popular place for college boys to trade at, 
and our clothes were less sober then than now. 
The trousers had a strap of the same material 
attached to the bottom, so that this strap would 
fit under the shoe, the effect being that of a sort 
of gaiter. We would go for ice-cream to a well- 
known store on School Street, though I forget the 
name of the caterer. Theatres were not numer- 
ous, as they are now, but I remember the first 
time that I went to one. It was in the early 
forties, while I was in college and near the time 
when the elder Beecher (father of Henry Ward) 
boasted of having closed all such institutions in 
Boston. The play or opera, which I can vividly 
recall to this day, was "La Somnambula," and I 
shall never forget the remarkable actress who, in 
her sleep, walked down a supposed roof from a 
window and slid safely to the ground. My visit 
to this entertainment was mainly surreptitious, 
which enhanced its attractions, I suppose. I was 
taken very early to concerts in Boston, where I 
32 



^. 








imS^k 



r-'^-.^^ ^ 




Map of Section of Boston, 1814 



In Boston and Cambridge 

acted as escort to my stately aunt, Mrs. Francis 
Clianning, who drove us in. 

I find recorded, in the year 1845, that I was 
invited to hear the famous Ole Bull play at the 
house of Mr. James Lowell, who had asked a few 
people to meet him; but the great violinist did not 
come, and I wrote down at that time: — "The 
Lion from the North was to have walked out of 
Boston at 6 P. M. with John Hopper . . . 
but he appeared not, being lost in Cambridge- 
port lanes we supposed — I was sorry for he is said 
to be a charming person to know, so simple and 
natural and fresh." 

In the same year I find the following entry in 
my letters: "At Cambridge we are in peace since 
the Texas petition (764 names, 13 ft. long, double 
column) went off." This petition was to oppose 
the admission of Texas to the Union, 

In those days Christmas gifts were not the 
customary thing; but the making of presents was 
reserved until New Year's, although I find an 
account of celebrating Christmas by taking part 
in charades and dancing on that evening, — ending 
by joining Levi Thaxter (afterwards Celia Thax- 
ter's husband) and giving a serenade to a certain 
Cambridge belle. I also find recorded that I 
broke down ignominiously in singing "Love 
wakes and weeps" and made an absurd exit, 
scrambling over fences. 

This period was before the time of annual sum- 
mer Sittings, but there was a great deal of calling 
in the warm weather, especially at the house of 
3 33 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

Samuel Perkins in Brookline. I remember when 
I lived in Brookline as tutor to his grandchildren — 
his wife being my aunt — how the family friends 
would drive out in the afternoon and be treated 
to fruit, cake, and the hke, and visit the gardens, 
which were then quite unique. Daniel Webster 
came once, and it was my great good fortune to 
hand him some sugar for his cup of tea. Among 
the other guests came members of Brook Farm, 
some of whom wore peculiar costumes. Several 
times I drove one of my cousins out to fancy 
dress entertainments given by these social experi- 
menters, where I must have seen Hawthorne; 
and George Curtis in his shirt-sleeves could be 
seen wiping dishes which the young ladies had 
washed. 

Two years later I gave up this position of 
tutor which I had been filling, because I had de- 
cided that the best thing for me to do was to 
return to Cambridge and take up my studies 
again. I vividly remember my journey from 
Brookline to Cambridge. I procured a convey- 
ance of some sort to bear my few earthly posses- 
sions, — ^boxes, trunks, and the like, — to my new 
quarters, but I walked most of the way in the 
mud, alongside of my belongings. In approach- 
ing the Charles River I came past what is now 
Soldiers' Field with its great stadium. Then, I 
looked out over open meadows and marshes which 
were overflowed at high tide; but how they are 
transformed now when they have become a 
playground for a great university ! I also passed 



In Boston and Cambridge 

the farm of Emery Willard, whom we boys revered 
because he was reputed the strongest man in or 
near Cambridge. He kept the wood yard just 
across the Brighton Bridge, and I think I must 
have crossed over the same rickety bridge that 
spans the Charles at that point now. I read 
Irving's "Sketch Book" and "Bracebridge Hall" 
in those days and always identified Emery Willard 
with the "Ready Money Jack" of old England. 




( 



Beacon Street Mall about 1850 



At this period the finest residences of Boston 
clustered around Beacon Hill. From Charles 
Street, this aristocratic region stretched up 
Beacon Street to the State House, and through 
some of the side streets. Many of the houses 
were separate, with gardens and grounds about 
them, and some of them were built in blocks. If 
I remember aright, Park Street had a row of 
houses built close together at that time. Beacon 
35 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 



Street was truthfully described by Holmes as " the 
sunny street that holds the sifted few," and young 
men and maidens in good society carried on their 
courtships while walking around the Common or 
down the long path or on the mill-dam. "Whom 
does Arabella walk with now?" was a question 
occasionally heard in careful circles of maiden 
aunts.' 

The Charles River with its accompanying 
marshes and low lands came up to Charles Street. 
Boats came and went freely along the river before 
all that region of marsh land had been filled in and 
transformed into what we call the Back Bay, a 
name which is sometimes puzzling to strangers 
who do not understand whether we are referring 
to land or water. Boston's first mayor, the father 
of Wendell Phillips, lived in this old locality 
around Beacon Hill, in a house which is still 
standing at the corner of Chestnut and Walnut 
Streets. I can remember when the summit of 
Beacon Hill ran up behind the State House and 
was about even with the base of the dome; but 
this hill was afterwards graded 
down about eighty feet, bringing 
it to its present level, and the 
material used for filling in the 
low lands. 

The year 1847 was a notable 
year in Cambridge, for in that 
year. Professor Louis Agassiz 
came among us. Several charac- 
teristic anecdotes are told about 



Louis AoASSiz 




In Boston and Cambridge 

this lovable and inspiring man and teacher. His 
wife called out to him in horror one evening, on 
opening her closet door, " Louis ! there is a snake 
in my shoe!" and there came back the agonized 
cry, "Leezie, Leezie, where are the other five?" 
It was in 1847, also, that Dr. O. W. Holmes, a 
native of whom Cambridge is always proud, be- 




Oliver Wendell Holmes 

came professor in the Harvard Medical School. 
Longfellow and Lowell were married and living 
in their respective Cambridge homes at this time. 
And "Sweet Auburn," a quiet rural spot, which 
in previous years had been a favorite and refresh- 
ing resort for Cambridge and Boston people, had 
been transformed into Mount Auburn cemetery. 
At that time, according to my early school- 

37 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

mate, Lowell, there were living old people in the 
region of Copp's Hill who thought that the United 
States had made a mistake in parting from Great 
Britain. The advent of new peoples with foreign 
speech and customs has swept aside many old 
traditions and transformed whole regions. But 
for us, who survive and who have seen the great 
transformations, there is still a lingering interest 
in the old landmarks and old memories which are 
but faintly recalled in these scattered reminis- 
cences. 



38 



RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD BOSTON 

From a Convkrsation with a Boston Lady of the Pebiod 

In my childhood I lived on Pearl Street. My 
home in those early days was a delightful old 
house with a large garden at the rear, which had 
been given to my father and mother at the time 
of their marriage. It fronted on Pearl Street, 
looking toward Oliver Street, but the garden 
extended back to Atkinson Street, a thoroughfare 
which I believe has long since vanished in the 
process of transforming that part of the city into 
tjie wholesale business district of Boston. 
^ In the early forties Pearl Street was a delightful 
^residence section, a region of fine old houses with 
a succession of beautiful gardens, for which, indeed, 
it was famous. I might almost say that my child- 
hood was spent in a garden, for the custom of 
leaving the city during all or part of the summer 
months had not yet seized upon us. Although, 
to be sure, a few persons or families more restless 
than others, or envying friends who had travelled, 
sought the mountains or shore for a protracted 
absence of perhaps one week, these were rare 
exceptions, at least until after 1844, and so we 
were wont, as a matter of course, to remain at 
home the year around. Thus, in the summer 
months much of the recreation and enjoyment 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

of the people of Boston were derived from the 
generous gardens which at that period were 
characteristic of nearly all of the better residence 
sections of the city. 

In those days Pearl Street, strange as it may 
now seem, was a delightful place of residence in 
summer. It was near the water front and 
received the cooling breezes of the bay. The blue 
waters of the harbor were visible but a few steps 
from my home, and it was only necessary to cross 
High Street (which as a child I did with much 
trepidation) to quickly reach the shore. 

There was considerable business transacted 
along the Boston wharves, at the period to 
which I refer, for the city at that period 
possessed an extensive foreign and coast trade, 
but there was httle outward evidence of these in 
noise and bustle. Here and there appeared the 
tall masts and spars of brigs and schooners, and 
there were many white sails off shore, but steam- 
boats had not yet come into general use for 
commercial purposes, and life along the water 
front was subdued, quiet and dehberate. The 
wharves and mansions of Portsmouth, N. H., as 
they appear today, seem to me to resemble in some 
respects the Boston of 1840. , 

My childhood in the old mansion on Pearl 
Street and life in the great garden are all delightful 
recollections. Many years later, while in Chelten- 
ham, England, I called at the house of a friend 
residing in that city, and my surprise may be im- 
agined when I suddenly observed as I stood upon the 



Recollections of Old Boston 

steps that the house was almost an exact counter- 
part of my old home upon Pearl Street in Boston. 

The school which I attended was near our 
house; a plain httle school house it was, without 
adornment, except for the hollyhocks which in this 
season blossomed beside it. Before long the 
encroachments of business began to be apparent, 
however, and though the old residents bitterly 
opposed the change, by the late forties warehouses 
intruded where gardens and old homes had been, 
and Pearl Street was speedily appropriated by the 
expanding business interests of the city. 

I was born in Boston, but John Quincy Adams 
(who died in 1848) and my father's aunts resided 
in Quincy. I recollect clearly, even though I 
was a very small child, driving to the Quincy 
home for a Sunday visit to these relatives. 

We lived in those days in very simple fashion. 
All dresses were made in the household; the stuffs 
were bought in the shops, which were located 
principally on Washington Street. I recollect 
that my mother made most of her purchases at 
Mr. Daniel's store. Sewing women came to the 
houses, and worked as seamstresses do today, 
but these women not only made the dresses for 
the women and girls of the household, but a tail- 
oress came also, who made the coats and trousers 
for the boys. That was long before the era of 
ready made clothing for either sex. The dresses 
of that period, however, were generally very 
simple and required not more than a day and a 
half to make. Those for example which were 
41 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

worn everyday were merely skirts "fulled on to the 
waist." One good dress of silk or satin or damask 
"for best" (which usually lasted for many years) 
and a very meagre wardrobe of gowns for daily use 
was all that the better class of women expected, or 
often possessed, in the Boston of the thirties and 
forties. 

The furs we wore when we went visiting or 
sleighing, came, as I recall it, principally from 
France. I remember well a set of sable which as 
a young woman I possessed, and which I know 
came from that country. In extremely cold 
weather the men wore skin caps, of beaver and 
other furs, and coats of buffalo skins. 

In my youth, and indeed until after the Civil 
War, nearly all our feminine needs were supplied 
by importations from abroad. Hosiery and dress 
goods other than calicoes and ginghams, — such 
goods, I mean, as poplins and silks — came from 
England, Ireland and France. Russian linens 
were especially fine, and as some of my family 
were engaged in foreign trade we were favored in 
securing goods of this kind. I recall that my 
mother had been presented at her marriage with 
a very beautiful set of household linen, made 
in Russia, in which was woven the American 
Eagle. 

While the war was in progress much discussion 
occurred over the extensive use by Northern 
women of English and foreign goods, to which 
much opposition was shown, and it was said that 
we Americans should patronize home industries. 



Recollections of Old Boston 

One day I met on the Common James L. Little, 
who was the manager of the Lawrence Mills. 

"If you want us to buy American dress goods," 
I said, "you must make stuffs suitable for our use. 
You cannot expect New England women to wear 
calicoes and prints in winter." 

"That is true," he repHed, "but we are too busy 
with the manufacture of prints to make any other 
kind of goods." 

At that period our manufacturers were far 
behind the needs of the nation, and I presume 
in some classes of goods the same condition exists 
today. 

At this distance even to the few who remain 
to personally recall it, the decade from 1840 to 
1850 looks dim and remote. Senator Henry Cabot 
Lodge, in his recently published "Memories," 
summed up most effectively the change which was 
impending at that period: 

"The year 1850 stood on the edge of a new 
time, but the old time was still visible from it, 
still indeed prevailed about it. The men and 
women of the elder time with the old feelings 
and habits were still numerous and for the most 
part quite unconscious that their world was slip- 
ping away from them. Hence, the atmosphere 
of our old stone house, and indeed of Boston 
itself was still an eighteenth century atmosphere, 
if we accept Sir Walter Besant's statement that 
the eighteenth century ended in 1837. But at 
all events it was entirely different from anything 
to be found today. Thus it happened that the 
43 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

year 1850 came at the dawn of the new time 
now plainly recognized, but the meaning and 
scope of which are as yet little understood, and 
the result of which can only be darkly guessed, 
because the past has but a dun light to throw on 
the untried paths ahead." 



44 



THE OLD BOSTON WATER FRONT* 

1840-1850 

By Frank H. Forbes 

The newer and greater Boston that is to be 
dawns upon my vision. There are broad avenues 
and boulevards, terraces, parks, Charlesgates 
East and Charlesgates West, the Acropolis on 
Mars Hill reproduced on Beacon Hill. I can see 
huge and stately docks of stone and steel and 
brick on the North shore and on the South shore, 
and a fleet of ocean steam Leviathans, their 
sombre smokestacks outlining the horizon. But 
you will pardon an old man of three score and 
ten if he fondly turns back to another picture — 
inexpressibly dearer to him from old associations 
— the picture of the older, lesser Boston, with its 
crooked streets and narrow ways, the Common 
apd the Frog Pond. 

f In one respect at least the older Boston sur- 
passed the Boston of today. The pride of the 
city more than half a century ago was its water 
front stretching from north to south, indented 
and built up with spacious docks and wharves, 
with a forest of masts and spars, and a wealth of 
snowy canvas such as no other city in the Union 
could boast of. 

In the forties Boston, so far as the extent and 
variety of its commerce was concerned, had no 

* An unpublished address delivered before the Bostonian Society. 
45 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

equal among the cities of the United States. 
There was no quarter of the civihzed or uncivil- 
ized globe in which the enterprise, energy, and 
pluck of a Boston merchant and a Boston ship- 
master did not find an entrance, or from which a 
wealth of commerce did not return. Cooper, 
the novelist, whose works were never regarded as 
the standard of truth, attempted to elevate 
New York at the expense of Boston; but facts 
tell another story. For more than twenty years, 
New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, as well 
as other business centers, depended largely upon 
Boston for the products of far-off countries. With 
many of the leading ports in Europe, Asia, Africa, 
South America, the West India Islands and the 
West Coast, Boston fairly had the monopoly of 
trade. The decade, from 1844 to 1854, wit- 
nessed the culmination of old Boston's prosperity 
as the leader in foreign trade. 

The long stretch of improved water front, with 
its spacious wharves and docks, was the natural 
outcome of the commercial enterprise of the 
Boston of this period. In these the pride of the 
city was fully justified as well as in the fine ware- 
houses which flanked them. No port from the 
capes of Florida to Casco Bay could boast of such 
wharves and docks. Before the filling of South 
Cove, the wharf and dock property represented 
fully one-fifth of the areas of old Boston. From 
what is now Dover Street bridge on the south, to 
Charlestown bridge on the north, was an unbroken 
water front available for wharf and dock purposes. 
46 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

In this paper, however, I shall consider only such 
wharves as were in use for commercial purposes. 

Upon the south, the first wharf, as I recall it, 
was Wales Wharf, leading off from Sea Street, with 
its quaint and venerable looking block of stone 
warehouses. This was the property of T. B. 
Wales & Co., then, and for years, one of the lead- 
ing firms in Boston, having foreign connections, 
as well as large ship owners. This wharf was 
exclusively used by them. 

Next was Russia Wharf, famous sixty years 
ago and owned by the Inches. This wharf was 
largely utilized for foreign trade. Liverpool 
and Fort Hill Wharves were next. The latter 
for years was the terminal point for vessels from 
the British Provinces. Next north was Arch 
Wharf. This was largely devoted to the West 
India trade and trade with the Provinces. It had 
some notable occupants in its day, such as Chas. 
Cole, Thos. Tremlett, Sheafe and Melledge. 

Foster's Wharf, or Wharves, came next; there 
were two of them, north and south. I am not 
certain whether this property was incorporated 
or whether it was individual. This wharf, or 
rather these wharves, did the largest business 
under the occupancy of John H. Pearson & Co. 
They were large ship owners, and had an extensive 
foreign trade, particularly with Europe. Pearson 
had a long lease. He started a line of packets for 
Philadelphia, and later one for New Orleans. 
The latter line was composed of four ships, con- 
sidered large at that period, built at Medford, 
48 



The Old Boston Water Front 

expressly for packet service, the Norfolk^ Suffolk, 
Middlesex and Essex. Neither line was successful. 
Pearson's lease terminated September 30, 1845, 
when he took a ten-years lease of Long Wharf. 
The last large ships that loaded there were the 
Lochinvar for New Orleans, and the Michigan for 
Mobile. Pearson did not make a fortune out of 
his lease, and the property had no particular 
distinction after that till it came into the posses- 
sion of the present holders. Parties who knew 
Foster's wharf in 1844 would hardly recognize 
it as it is in 1894. 

Rowe's Wharf has a very interesting history 
in the past, and is the only large wharf south of 
Union Street that has not been shorn of its 
proportions by the improvement consequent 
upon the laying out of Atlantic Avenue. The 
same old block of stores is still standing. It was 
a corporation when I first knew it, and probably 
for years before, the principal stockholders, as 
well as occupants, being the Richardsons and 
Cunninghams, large importers of fruit and other 
products from the south of Europe. The Cun- 
ninghams owned the one-time famous mail packet, 
the big Harbinger, running between Fayal and 
Boston. She was for years one of the features of 
the wharf. Rowe's Wharf did a large transient 
business, and its management was very popular 
with ship owners and ship masters. In 1848 
Allen & Weltch took a long lease of this wharf, 
and transferred their lines of southern packets 
thence from Commercial Wharf. During their 
4 49 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

tenure the wharf did an immense and profitable 
business. 

Next comes India Wharf, incorporated ninety 
years ago, the first in order going north of the 
grand old wharves of Boston. The East India 
business was largely represented by the occu- 
pants of the respective stores. As I remember 
them in the middle forties, there were the Austins, 
the Parkmans, the Lymans, and the Wiggles- 
worths. The West India trade was represented 
by Benjamin Burgess & Sons, Philo S. Shelton, 
Atkins & Freeman, Homer & Sprague. Other 
foreign trades were represented by Boardman & 
Pope. Gardner & Co., John L. Gardner, Michael 
Simpson, Winsor Fay, R. B. Storer, N. F, Cun- 
ningham & Co., at one time the leading cotton 
merchants of Boston, were there for years. Not 
the least important occupant was old Sam Prince, 
the sail-maker. The wharfage income mainly 
accrued from the occupants of stores, but the 
wharf did a large transient business. Its annual 
income from all sources was not much less than 
$40,000. 

The east side of India Street, from India 
Wharf, was practically a wharf for its entire length. 
Here were to be found regular packets between 
Boston and New York, Hartford, New London, 
Fairhaven, New Bedford and Nantucket. The 
berth adjoining India Wharf was generally occu- 
pied by large vessels belonging to John L. Gard- 
ner. The last of these that I remember was the 
brig Pleiades, and associated with her is the fact 
50 



The Old Boston Water Front 

that she was sokl at auction by Thos. W. Sears, 
the most accompHshed auctioneer of his day in 
Boston; and this was the last sale he ever made. 
Another fact was that the Pleiades brought the 
last full cargo to Boston of pepper and cockroaches. 
The Central Wharf and Wet Dock Co. was 
chartered in 1815. For a great many reasons 
Central Wharf was the most conspicuous and 
the most attractive of all the old Boston wharves. 
In the first place it had the largest continuous 
block of warehouses in the country. Its docks 
on the north and south side were continuous from 
India Street to the channel. Then it had the 
most varied commerce. Its merchants, and their 
ships and cargoes represented the trade and prod- 
ucts of every quarter of the globe. Let me give 
the names of some of them — names now almost 
forgotten, but the very sound of which recalls the 
grand old era of Boston's commerce, when we did 
our own importing direct, and under the old flag — 
Perkins & Co., Mark Healey, Samuel C. Gray, 
Atkinson & Rollins, Whitney, Benj. Bangs, 
Bryant & Sturgis, Curtis & Stevenson, Eager, 
Kahler, Ray & Wheeler, the Foster's, Wm. F. 
Weld & Co., W^ainwright & Tappan, Stanton, 
Fiske & Nichols, Joshua Blake, Barnard, Adams 
& Co., Wm. Worthington & Co., J. V. Bacon, 
Chandler, Howard & Co., Joseph Ballisted, 
Zacariah Jellison, Isaac Williamson, Herbert C. 
Hooper, Hill & Chamberlain, Fiske & Rice, H. &. 
R. Williams, Greeley & Guild. The Mediter- 
ranean trade was a prominent feature, and there 

51 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

was scarcely a day in the year that a vessel from 
one or more of the Mediterranean ports was not 
discharging. The Mediterranean fleet itself was 
conspicuous, comprising some of the finest clip- 
pers afloat, like the Nautilus, the Martha Wash- 
ington, the Emma Isadora, and the Griffin. 

The fruit season was a very interesting one, 
particularly to the boys on Wednesday and Satur- 
day afternoons. Two-thirds of the length on the 
south side would be represented by alternate 
cargoes of oranges and lemons, figs and raisins. 
Central Wharf had two features, permanent the 
year around; huge piles of brimstone on the 
south side, and dyewoods on the north. Long 
Wharf had no particular features except the old 
salt stores, and the Hingham Station Packet, 
which was the landing place for old Commodore 
Sturgis, of revenue cutter fame, and the point 
of arrival and departure of the Custom House 
boarding officers, under old Kettel, and the news 
boat in command of Clive. Long Wharf was the 
terminal of lines of packets to Richmond and 
New York, and also of Alland & Troy's Phila- 
delphia packets. That was in the days of Elihu 
Reed, Bangs, Rice & Thaxton, and Williams. 
Long Wharf was a favorite wharf for excursions 
and fishing parties, and from which the Mam- 
moth Cod Association, one hundred strong, de- 
parted on their annual trips. 

Under the management of old Elijah Loring it 
had a sort of sleepy existence. In 1845, however, 
it took a new start when John H. Pearson took a 
52 



The Old Boston Water Front 

ten- years lease at $50,000 a year, and the United 
States erected the first block of bonded ware- 
houses. The price paid was regarded as enor- 
mous, but Pearson was glad to renew the lease at 
its expiration, and during his fifteen-years tenure 
it was undoubtedly the best paying wharf property 
in Boston. Brimmer's T was a sort of leg set ofif 
from Long Wharf, but a noted wharf fifty and 
more years ago. In the early thirties Martin 
Brimmer erected a block of granite stores at the 
upper end. This block was occupied by Brimmer, 
Sprague, Soule & Co., Bramhall & Howe, and 
Sims and Eaton, with Lombard's sail loft over- 
head. Fifty years ago T Wharf was the noted 
fish wharf of Boston, with old Joe Locke of savory 
memory as its presiding genius. As you entered 
from Long Wharf, on the left was the largest 
establishment for packing dry fish in Boston. 
T Wharf was the center of a large trade with the 
British Provinces, and was the grand depot for 
grindstones. T \^^larf is entitled to the credit 
of being the first wharf in Boston proper for the 
departure of ocean steamers. The first New York 
outside line, with the steamer Ontario, started from 
here; then the Philadelphia line with the Kensing- 
ton, then the Halifax line, then the Metropolitan 
New York line, and then the Savannah line. 

Commercial Street, from Long Wharf to Com- 
mercial Wharf, like India Street, was, on the 
east side, practically a wharf, and about the 
busiest locality in Boston. First there was City 
Wharf, the outcome of the genius of the older 
63 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

Quincy, and a part of the original Market scheme. 
Then came Mercantile Wharf, the Baltimore, 
Philadelphia and Eastern packet piers. In 1832 
City Wharf was leased for a period of twenty years 
to a syndicate of whom Wm. B. Reynolds was 
the head; later the lease was transferred to the 
Market Bank, who held it till the property was 
sold by the city in 1852. The stores were in- 
cluded in the lease. At one time I had from 
Josiah Stickney, late president of the bank, the 
amount of the lease and the net income above its 
earnings to the bank. At any rate it was im- 
mensely profitable for the bank. The sale of 
this property at public auction in Fanueil Hall, 
in 1852, was long remembered. 

Mercantile Wharf and the adjoining piers, at 
the period of which I speak, was under lease to 
Horace Scudder & Co. The packet lines to New 
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington 
represented fully a hundred sail of vessels, 
barques, brigs and schooners, and a large portion 
of this fleet centered in this locality. The sailing 
days were Wednesdays and Saturdays, and on 
these days, especially during what was known as 
the packet season. Commercial Street was almost 
impassable. Commercial Street was practically 
the center of the grain trade, and there were 
always to be found fifteen or twenty vessels dis- 
charging their cargoes. 

The entrance from the harbor to the upper 
north side of Long Wharf to City Wliarf, 
Mercantile Wharf and the piers was between 

54 



The Old Boston Water Front 

Commercial and T Wliarves, through a series of 
channels having very much the appearance of 
the canals of Venice. I think the entering and 
departing of this great fleet was one of the most 
exciting and interesting sights one ever beheld. 
This was before the days of steam tugs, when 
vessels of any description, from a ship to a 
sloop, used to beat in and out the harbor, and 
yet I have seen a whole fleet pass in through the 
dock between Commercial Wharf and T wharf, 
under full sail, and not let go a halyard till the 
berth at pier or wharf was reached. 

Granite Wliarf , or Commercial, was the first of 
the new North End structures, and far exceeded 
anything of the kind in Boston for its impos- 
ing massiveness. The old wharves were largely 
depleted of tenants to furnish occupants. The 
East India trade, the South American trade, 
Coast of Africa, Cape of Good Hope, Mediter- 
ranean, North of Europe, the West India Islands, 
and the Spanish main were represented by such 
firms as Bryant & Sturgis, Robert G. Shaw & Co., 
Daniel C. Bacon, Henry Oxhard, Enoch Train & 
Co., B. C. Clarke & Co., Wm. Perkins, Bates & 
Thaxton, Barnard, Adams & Co., Beccomb, 
Bartlett & Co., Hunnewell & Pierce, the Nicker- 
son's, P. & S. Sprague, Ezra Weston, and so on. 
It was a high-toned wharf in those days, and if a 
fishing smack, or a lobster boat stuck its nose into 
the dock, it would have been fired out instanter. 
But it was some years later that the climax of 
wharf building was reached. A syndicate headed 
55 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

by Robert G. Shaw, John Brown, and Ammi C. 
Lombard, in the middle thirties, purchased the old 
Lewis, Spear and Hancock Wharves, and started 
the enterprise of building the new Lewis Wharf. 
It was at that period of wildest speculation through- 
out the country, and of course the enterprise was 
in advance of the times. The three parties I have 
named sunk nearly $50,000 each in the under- 
taking. But when completed, it stood forth as 
the crowning glory of commercial Boston. The 
docks and wharf were spacious, but far beyond 
these was the magnificent block of solid granite 
warehouses, that far surpassed anything of the 
kind in the United States, if not in the world. 
It soon attracted immigration from the older 
wharves; some of the wealthiest of Boston mer- 
chants took possession, bringing with them their 
large fleet of magnificent ships — Benjamin Bangs, 
then at the head of the Valparaiso trade, John 
Brown & Co., William Appleton & Co., then in 
the China and East India trade, Enoch Train 
& Co., who possibly contemplated his line of 
Liverpool packets, Sampson & Tappan, Lombard 
& Whitman, Isaac Winslow & Sons, Ammi C. 
Lombard & Co., Fairfield, Lincoln & Co., John 
L. Gardner. 

Lewis Wharf reached its greatness during the 
decades 1840-1860. It was during the first 
decade that Train established his Liverpool line, 
composed of the finest ships that ever entered or 
sailed from the port of Boston. In the second 
decade Glidden & Williams started their famous 
56 



The Old Boston Water Front 

line of clippers from San Francisco. Lewis Wharf 
was my first love — the Alma Mater from which 
I graduated, if not with high honors, with a full 
repertoire of interesting memories. No old Ro- 
man ever answered his hail with '^Civis Rom- 
anus sum" more proudly than I did when I 
said "I am from Lewis WTiarf." 

North from Lewis were the old Eastern Rail- 
road Wharf, Sargent's Wharf, May's Wharf or 
Union Wharf, Lincoln's Wharf, the old Marine 
railway, a distinctive feature of Boston's com- 
merce. Battery Wharf, Constitution, Aspinwall's, 
Fiske's, Comer's, Ripley's, Grey's, Bartlett's, 
South and North Wharves, Clapp's Wharf, 
Brown's 'Wharf and Vinal's. All these wharves 
were important features in the commerce of Bos- 
ton during the period to which I allude. The 
wharves gave character to the merchants, and 
the merchants gave character to the wharves. 

Fifty years ago the average citizen, clerk, 
schoolboy and laborer could distinguish the mer- 
chant who did business on the wharf from any 
other class. He would come down in the morning, 
stop at the post office when it was in this building, 
obtain letters, then adjourn to Topliff's Reading 
Room in the basement. Later on, after the Ex- 
change was built, go to the post office there, then 
to the News Room overhead, or to the Insurance 
Offices, and digest them. Then go down State 
Street in line, turning through Merchants Row 
and Chatham Row or Commercial Street, to the 
North-End wharves, or through Kilby, Broad 
«7 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

and India Streets, to the South-End wharves, and 
at noon return by the same ways to high 'Change 
on State Street. The merchant's counting room 
and warehouse then were where his ships came 
in, and he personally supervised their loading and 
unloading. Fifty years ago a boy or clerk in an 
up-town store regarded it as a great privilege to 
be sent down to a wharf with a message, and he 
made the most of his time. 

Our wharves then were in every truth water 
parks for the people, and contained no end of 
object lessons. On pleasant Sundays whole fam- 
ilies resorted thither. On holidays or special 
gala occasions, they were immensely attractive; 
each vied with the other. Every description of 
craft, from a sloop to a full rigged ship, was rich 
in the display of canvas and bunting. It was a 
picture that at this date can be more easily imag- 
ined than described. 

The "wharfingers" were men of no mean 
standing with the merchants and ship owners. 
They bore the same relative position to wharf 
corporations that today general managers bear 
to railroad corporations. Maccey of Rowe's, 
Brown of India, Blaney of Central, Loring of 
Long, Parker of City, Hersey of Commercial, 
Davison of Lewis, Pierce of Union, Homer 
of Battery, Elwell of Constitution, Wilder of 
Comey's, Redding of Brown's, were autocrats 
in their way, and from their decision there was 
no appeal. 

The first break in our continuous water front 



The Old Boston Water Front 

was in the thirties, when the dock between Cen- 
tral and Long was taken for the Custom House. 
The next, in the fifties, when City Wharf was 
sold, and when the Mercantile Wharf block and 
the State Street block were built. The last was 
in the sixties, when Atlantic Avenue was con- 
structed. Then, and forever, departed the tradi- 
tional glory of the old wharves of Boston. 



THE OLD ROSEWOOD DESK 

By Maud Howe Elliott 

There never was so beautiful, so wonderful a 
writing desk in the world as my mother's old 
rosewood secretary. It has four wide deep 
drawers in the lower part and one secret hiding- 
place. When you wish to write, you unlock and 
let down the front or "flap," faced with faded 
blue velvet — then you catch your breath — the 
sight of that marvellous interior, with its myste- 
rious suggestions of romance, thrills you still after 
years of familiarity. First, there is the mirror 
at the back, where you can see your face, where 
she saw her face when it was young, without a 
line of care, her alabaster forehead, red-gold hair, 
eyes like beryls, just as you can see them today 
in Joseph Ames' portrait of her. 

The desk, lined with pale yellow satinwood, has 
curving ornaments and small, neatly turned knobs 
of dark rosewood. It has fascinating secret 
drawers, that smell faintly of dried rose-leaves 
and lavender; in one of these I found a packet of 
time-stained papers. The first — a mere scrap 
of cream-colored parchment — set my heart beat- 
ing, put my imagination to work, for it tells a 
story of old Boston. The writing is crabbed, 
the ink pale bronze, the spelling quaint : 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

July- 
Mrs. Ward to E. Weld dett for horses and shay. 
To Boston five times and horse ones to blue hill $7. 
19th.. Had the horse alone but did not use it (no 

charge) 

22d To Boston 1.50 

24 To the neck 1.25 

5 chickens at 2 shillings apiece 1.66 

Ditto hen and chickens 5.50 

Received payment in full 

Ebenezer Weld. 

"Nothing but an old bill," you say? 

Yes, something more, the clew to a bit of family 
history. It tells us that in the pleasant summer 
weather of this year without a date my beautiful 
young grandmother, Mrs. Ward, came on a visit 
to her mother, Mrs. Cutler, who lived in the old 
colonial house in Jamaica Plain where Mr. George 
Wheelwright, Jr., now lives; that these two gay 
and lovely ladies drove to Boston, to the "neck," 
to "blue hill." I warrant they took whatever 
pleasure was "coming to them," in the same 
joyous spirit of thankfulness for life that marks 
those of their descendants, of whom we say "he" 
or "she" is a Cutler. Perhaps there was room in 
Ebenezer 's shay for Mrs. Ward's little daughter 
Julia, to whom this rosewood desk belonged. 
If Ebenezer had been as exact as he was honest — 
I thank him now for not having charged for the 
horse the day it was "had" and not "used" — 
if he had dated his bill properly, we might fix 
the year of my mother's first visit to Boston, and 
determine whether or no the earliest of her many 
62 



The Old Rosewood Desk 

jaunts to the city was made with mother and 
grandmother in Ebenezer's shay. I am sure it 
was of the same genus as the One-Hoss Shay, 
painted yellow, Hned with blue broadcloth, swung 
low and roomy between two vast wheels. 

What visions this old bill evokes; The flush 
of those past pleasures whose price it records 
glows rosy through the dusky years. I am glad 
Grandmother Ward paid for those chickens, 
whether they were roasted, baked in a pie or added 
to Great-grandmother Cutler's hen-roost. Grand- 
mother Cutler had to practice economy; it was 
only fitting that when her daughter, who had 
married a rich New York banker, came to stay 
she should "stand treat" for the outings and the 
poultry Ebenezer furnished. 

As I lay the scrap of yellowed paper back in 
its shallow drawer, I look up at the portrait of 
Grandmother Ward over the chimneypiece, oppo- 
site the rosewood desk, and put the question we 
ask of each old portrait that we love : 

"You liked your life?" 

The brown eyes answer with their sweet half- 
distant smile: 

"Yes, I liked it all!" 

She died at twenty-seven, having borne seven 
children; six of them lived to grow up. The little 
Julia, though only five at the time of her mother's 
death, carried through life the happiest memories 
of her and remembered, oh! how faithfully, all 
her little lessons in behavior. 

The next document in the bundle of old papers 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

is a letter from Grandmother Cutler, written in a 
clear strong hand on a double sheet, folded and 
sealed with a red wafer, addressed to the care of 
Samuel Ward, New York; it has neither envelope, 
express nor post mark. The letter was sent by 
a friend, for this was before the days of stamps, 
when postage was a heavy item. 

Jamaica Plain, Tuesday afternoon. 
My dear Daughter, 

I send you this notice, by way of relieving your 
mind from your generally kind anxiety respecting 
me. I am tolerably well for me — but oh, the 
weather, the weather! When will it be settled 
again? I have been out of the house but once since 
the day I entered it. I have sent Mr. Ward, by the 
desire of the parson, Mr. M. L.'s address before the 
"Temperance Society," which 1 cannot but think 
through the interest he takes in it calculated to 
please him. I have read every word of it and am 
delighted with the performance. It is such a march of 
intellect — and bears down so forcibly and fully all 
belore it — thnt 1 think it well calculated to be of 
extensive benefit to all mankind, and only wish there 
were copies sufBcient to be distributed through the 
nation. Also as Mr. Ward will not probably bear the 
sound or sight of a Deniijon in his house, I should be 
glad of the loan ot one, as we have a fine parcel of 
"Mazard Cherries," to make it full ol cherry bounce 
to send to McAllister and, indeed, 1 should like 
to send my friend Mr. Bullock another. I am going 
to send this down this evening by Mr. Chrismas to 
take tomorrow morning and hope my messenger 
will bring me a line in return from you. Love to 
all the dear chicks, believing me ever your affec- 
tionate and fond Mother. 

Love to the Doc. He must read L's address as he 
loves genius. 



The Old Rosewood Desk 

Oh, Grandmother Cutler, Grandmother Cutler, 
dear daughter of Eve! At the moment you are 
sending a temperance tract to your sober son-in- 
law, Mr, Ward, in New York, you are plotting 
to get hold of one of his demijons to send "cherry 
bounce" to your jovial son-in-law McAllister of 
Savannah. Were you too that rara avis, the per- 
fect mother-in-law? It looks like it! There's 
a good deal in heredity after all. Your most dis- 
tinguished descendant, the granddaughter who 
kept your faded letter all her long life, was well 
loved by her sons-in-law too. 

The phrase, so-and-so "is a Cutler," has be- 
come classic through use to four generations, so 
it must stand. From some of the letters in the 
old desk, however, it looks as if the term were a 
misnomer. That joie de vivre, that dancing of 
the blood it implies never came from the phleg- 
matic Dutch Cutlers, whose first ancestor in this 
country, John de Mesmekir of Holland, translated 
his name into English. No, that temperament, 
"the family champagne," came from Grand- 
mother Cutler, in whose veins ran French Hugue- 
not blood. She was Mitchell, a Virginian belle, 
niece of General Francis Marion " (the Swamp- 
fox of the Revolution)." General Washington 
once crossed a ballroom to speak with her, and 
Colonel Perkins — the Colonel Perkins of Boston 
— in talking of her to my mother said: 

"I remember your grandmother Cutler as a 
fascinating widow with a lovely voice." 

She was married at fourteen to Colonel Heme 
5 65 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

and the tradition of her grief at parting with her 
dolls on her wedding morning still survives. Later 
she married Benjamin Cutler, Sheriff Cutler of 
Massachusetts, who died when she was still 
young, leaving her a great family of children and 
little else besides. Another tradition clings to 
her memory, vouched for by Colonel Perkins. 

"At parties the Governor always gave his arm 
to Mrs. Cutler and took her in to supper, for though 
she was a widow and not rich, she was ires grande 
dame and much respected." 

After Grandmother Ward's death in 1824, 
grandfather often brought his Httle flock of moth- 
erless children to see their Grandmother Cutler. 
My mother always remembered a certain visit when 
they stayed at the Tremont House, at that time the 
most fashionable hotel in Boston. It was a massive 
building of grey granite, with vast stone columns 
in the Greco-American style, that stood where 
S. S. Pierce's shop now stands, at the corner of 
Tremont and Beacon Streets. The children's 
tutor, Mr. Joseph Cogswell, later the first libra- 
rian of the Astor Library, was of the party. The 
company at the Tremont House proved so gay, 
the table so rich, that Grandfather — a Puritan 
of the Puritans — fled from it in terror, taking his 
little people to the Mt. Washington House in 
South Boston. Dr. Cogswell and the young folks 
missed the goodies and the frivolities of the Tremont 
House, though they enjoyed the fine view and 
the splendid air of the Mt. Washington House, 
which stood on the high part of the peninsula 



The Old Rosewood Desk 

that ends in City Point, At that time this prom- 
ised to become the aristocratic quarter of Boston. 
Its natural advantages still make the Back Bay 
seem a poor place in comparison ; even the Charles 
River Basin and the Fenway can not make up 
for that glorious outlook over Boston Bay and 
Harbor. 

Another bill dated Paris, 1844, made out to 
Mme. Wowe for various embroidered muslin caps 
and dresses! Who says there is no romance in 
ancient receipts? If the rosewood desk held 
nothing but its old bills, I could construct from 
them its owner's intimate history. This French 
bill is for the layette of her first child, born in 
Rome in 1844; it is on crackly blue paper, written 
in a pointed French hand, and bears the revenue 
stamp for that year when Louis Philippe was on 
the throne of France, My father and mother 
were married in April, 1843, and after spending 
a year and a half in Europe they returned to 
Boston in the autumn of 1844. She found many 
changes in her adopted city. 

The Mt. Washington House, a failure as a hotel, 
had now become the Perkins Institution for the 
Blind. My father. Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, 
founder and director of the Institution, had fitted 
up a suite of rooms looking seaward. This now 
became my mother's first home in Boston. In 
those days the only public conveyance between 
South Boston and the city was an omnibus, that 
ran once in two hours. My mother adopted my 
father's mottoe, "Obstacles are things to over- 
67 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

come," and with characteristic energy set herself 
to overcome the obstacle of distance. She was 
determined to have for herself and for her family 
all that was best worth having in Boston, in spite 
of living at arm's length from it. For her the 
three great goods that city Ufe could give were 
good preaching, good music, good society. I can 
just remember the old green omnibus; in winter 
the floor was covered with straw to keep the 
passengers' feet from freezing, in summer with 
woven hemp mats made by the pupils at our 
Institution, It was chiefly in pursuit of the 
aforesaid good things that my mother made her 
endless trips to Boston in the old green 'bus, 
"but though on pleasure she was bent she had a 
frugal mind," and she found time to do a deal of 
family shopping besides. It was a matter of 
pride to us that it was never necessary for her 
' ' to take a sample "with her. She could ' ' match ' * 
the most delicate shade of silk, twist or trimming 
by memory perfectly. In her diary we find de- 
lightful little memoranda of things bought. 
At the foot of a page describing a lecture of 
Emerson's, tucked in, very small, on the last Une, 
come the items: 

"Buttons for Flossie fourteen cents. 
White gloves two dollars. 
Trimming for Laura twenty-four cents. 
Rose for Julia twenty-five cents." 

While she never to my knowledge copied these 
items into any separate book of expenses, they 



The Old Rosewood Desk 

occur regularly; how they served her seems ob- 
scure. At the time when she was deeply absorbed 
in the study of German philosophy, page after 
page of the diary is devoted to Kant's Critique 
of Pure Reason or Hegel's Logik, then faithfully 
added at the bottom of the sheet: "two bananas 
for Juha and Flossie twelve cents." At that 
time we only had the fat red bananas; they were 
cheap at six cents apiece and often cost ten. 

The fruit trade was then in the hands of the 
Irish. The old apple women still sat on the Com- 
mon in their brave blue Kerry hoods and cloaks, 
their baskets of fruit and nuts beside them. In 
winter one sat at the head, the other at the foot 
of the "long coast"; in summer they moved to 
the shade of the elms on the Mall. They were 
powerful rivals to Marm Horn, whose neat little 
shop on Charles Street, between Chestnut and 
Mt. Vernon, provided the best pickled limes 
in Boston; her black molasses candy at a penny 
a stick remains unique in the history of confec- 
tionery. "The Rovers of Boston," the earliest 
association I ever joined, were divided in their 
views on the question, "Wliere can the weekly 
five-cent allowance best be spent?" 

Governor Andrew's daughter stood out for 
Marm Horn's shop. I was loyal to a certain old 
apple woman. She was a terrific figure; when 
business was slack, she smoked a short black pipe; 
her voice was so gruff that I was secretly afraid 
of her. Her eyes were sharp and merry, however; 
her wrinkled cheeks were rosy as her apples, and 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

there was something bold and free about the old 
dame that won my allegiance, though her fruit 
was usually dusty and sometimes stale. In the 
spring, when the weather was warm, the Rovers 
grew adventurous and hiked out to Mrs. Hankey's 
shop in Jamaica Plain, in search of the cocoanut 
cakes that made her name famous to many gen- 
erations of girls and boys. 

Mrs. Maloney was more enterprising and a good 
deal younger than the old apple women. She 
wheeled her fruit about the streets in a little cart 
and I remember my mother used to arrange her 
morning walk to meet Mrs, Maloney and buy the 
day's supply of oranges from her. But all this 
was much later, in the sixties, when we were 
living at 19 Boylston Place. At that time my 
mother herself did the marketing at the old 
Boylston market, that stood at the corner of 
Washington and Boylston Streets. It was a 
source of grief to her and to many housekeepers 
when this excellent market was done away with. 
While she was always too profoundly concerned 
with moral questions to think very deeply of 
material ones, there ran through the web of her 
character an odd little business thread, just to 
remind us that after all she was not only child of 
the muses but a banker's daughter. She never to 
my knowledge destroyed a receipt or a business 
paper; she drew her own cheques and kept her 
own bank account till the end of her life. 

In the early days at South Boston, she always 
went on Sunday to hear Theodore Parker preach 
70 



The Old Rosewood Desk 



at the Melodeon. On one occasion the sermon 
was so long that she lost the omnibus that should 
have brought her home in time for Sunday dinner. 
As she entered the dining-room and found the 
family cross and hungry at dinner's delay (for 
no one would have thought of sitting down with- 
out her), she cried out, gaily forestalling all 
possible reproof: 

"Let no one find fault, I have heard the great- 
est thing I shall ever hear!" 

Parker had again "wielded the hammer of 
Thor," spoken in his most impassioned style of 
Daniel Webster and the rendition of the fugitive 
slave, Anthony Burns. It was a veritable hand- 
ing round of the fiery cross; the ardent souls among 
the congregation went forth, each kindled accord- 
ing to his nature by the great preacher's zeal. 
In her "Reminiscences" 
my mother describes a 
meeting at the time of 
the attempted rendition 
of the fugitive slave, 
Shadrach. 

"It was on this occa- 
sion," she writes, "that I 
first saw Colonel Higgin- 
son, who was then known 
as the Reverend Thomas 
Wentworth Higginson, 
pastor of a religious so- 
ciety in Worcester. The 
part assigned to him was 
71 




Theodobk Pabkbb 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

to read portions of the Scripture appropriate to 
the day. This he did with excellent eflFect." 

Though the date of this meeting is not men- 
tioned, it must have been in the early fifties. For 
more than half a century, my mother and Colonel 
Higginson met frequently on the platform at 
public gatherings. They became comrades in 
arms in the holy wars of Progress and Emancipa- 
tion. They had many traits in common, the 
most vital perhaps being a profound sense of the 
greater importance of public matters as compared 
to private affairs. Both were of that small and 
gallant company who build the fortunes of the 
State. Both fought for the Union, the Colonel 
with the sword, my mother with the pen. The 
last meeting of the two old comrades was at my 
mother's ninety-first birthday reception. They 
sat side by side, sharing the honors due them as 
almost the last of the great army of leaders "God 
sent us for our need" in the troublous time of 
darkness and doubt. 

"Music went with me, fairy flute and viol. 
The utterance of fancies half expressed." 

In these two lines of her poem, the "Voyage," 
my mother records her hfelong delight in music. 
In an "omnium gatherum" drawer of the old 
rosewood desk two "documents" lay side by side 
that at first seem to have little to do with each 
other; on second thoughts they prove to be links 
in the same long chain of pleasure. The first is 
a narrow slip of ancient paper cut from the 
72 



The Old Rosewood Desk 

journal of Auntie Francis, Grandmother Ward's 
sister, who brought up her motherless children. 

"Julia began music with Mr. Boocock Tuesday, 
October 30th, 1831." 

So this was the beginning of all that joy in 
music! No, for in 1831 she was twelve years old 
and by that time she was well advanced in music. 
Her first master was an irritable Frenchman, of 
whom she stood in such awe that she could remem- 
ber little that he taught. Her musical educa- 
tion really began with Mr. Boocock, always grate- 
fully remembered for having taught her to 
appreciate the works of Beethoven, Handel and 
Mozart. From the first she worked hard at her 
music and remained a good musician all her hfe. 
The "children's hour" always found her at the 
piano, singing for us the merry student songs her 
brother Sam brought home with him from the 
University of Heidelberg. As the children grew 
up and wandered abroad in search of new experi- 
ences, she was sometimes left alone in the precious 
twiUght hour. How often I have come home at 
dusk to hear her dear voice ringing out true and 
clear in the cadences of the florid Itahan operas 
of her youth, or throbbing with the romantic 
passionate melancholy of her own songs. Certain 
of these I could never hear without tears; one 
filled me with a strange, unbridled terror, a sonnet 
of Shakespeare's set to music of her own composi- 
tion. 

73 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

"Not a flower, not a flower sweet. 

On my black coSin let there be strewn; 
Not a friend, not a friend greet 

My poor corpse, where ray bones shall be thrown. 

"A thousand thousand sighs to save. 
Lay me, O, where 
Sad true love ne'er find my grave. 
To weep there." 

On her catching sight of the terrified child, the 
melancholy song came to an end, the quick glanc- 
ing hands struck the rollicking notes of Lanni- 
gan's Ball that set the httle girl dancing and chased 
away the dread shadow of mortality. 

The document found with the extract from 
Auntie Francis' journal is a member's ticket for 
the Handel and Haydn Society. One of the 
greatest pleasures of my mother's middle life was 
singing in the chorus of the Handel and Haydn. 
I remember her joy when my brother Henry 
Marion was old enough to join the society. The 
rehearsals were held on Sunday evening at half 
past seven; there used to be a great scramble to 
have supper early and get our two choristers off 
in time to their rehearsals at Bumstead Hall. 
They studied, under that splendid leonine old 
leader, Carl Zerrahn, the great choruses of the 
Messiah, Elijah, the Creation, Israel in Egypt, 
Judas Maccabaeus and Bach's Passion Music. 
My brother, who had a fine baritone voice, used 
to sing some of the arias to our mother's accom- 
paniment. I can hear now the stirring notes of 
the great passage, "His voice is hke a hammer 
74 



The Old Rosewood Desk 

that breaketh the rock," ring through the house, 
see her sitting at the old Chickering grand, her 
son standing at her side ! 

Mr. John Sullivan Dwight was one of the 
familiars at our house. My mother deeply sym- 
pathized with all his endless labor for the cause 
of good music in Boston. He was the chief moving 
force in the old Harvard Musical Concerts, fore- 
runners of the grander but not more enjoyable 
Symphony Concerts of today. They were given 
in the Boston Music Hall on Thursday afternoons. 
We had our seats with Mr. Dwight in the front 
row of the lower balcony, where it was thought 
the music was heard best. The placing of the 
great organ in the Music Hall was a momentous 
event. I remember going to a concert while the 
work of putting up the organ was still incomplete, 
and the tremendous impression made by the 
colossi, the great brown carved wood caryatids 
that held up the fagade of the organ, and the faces 
of the muses painted on the golden pipes. The 
other day at the ruined temple of Herakles, in 
Sicily, I was reminded of these wooden giants by 
the twin giants of stone that lie in fallen state upon 
the ground. The German wood-carver had seeR 
Magna Grecia, drawn his inspiration from the 
unfailing source of Greek art. 

One more treasure, kept these many years in 
the old writing desk! An ivory tessera with the 
head of Sophocles and the date of the performance 
of Antigone by the Saturday Morning Club. Well 
I remember her pleasure, her pride in the unique 
75 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

and beautiful production ! The maidens who took 
the younger parts are matrons now, the young 
matrons are grandmothers; but to her they always 
remained her "Sat. Morn. Club" girls, the loving 
and loyal members of the Girls' Club she founded 
thirty -five years ago. 

"What sense shall never know, 
Soul shall remember; 
Roses beneath the snow, 
June in November." 



76 



ADVERTISING IN BOSTON, 1847-1914 

By Robert Lincoln O'Brien, 
Editor of the Boston Herald 

If one were to pick up a newspaper of 64 years 
ago, the first thing with which one would be 
impressed would be the great preponderance of 
advertising over news matter. The Boston Her- 
ald, the Boston Bee, the Boston Transcript and 
the Boston Courier were all four-page newspapers 
in 1847. They were, contrary to the prevalent 
impression today, composed of about three- 
fourths advertising. Indeed, the newspaper then 
carried little else. A three-month old story of a 
Mexican War battle, a verbatim account of one 
of Charles Sumner's speeches, and some items of 
local interest, perhaps four or five columns in 
all, comprised the day's news. The second page 
of the paper was the news page; all of the first 
and last pages, and usually most of the third, 
were solid masses of small advertisements. The 
second and third pages were considered the most 
desirable, commanding double the price of the 
outside pages. 

The better class of shops followed highly dig- 
nified and apparently well-defined forms. The 
Bee in 1847, for example, carried this advertise- 
ment: "Persons desirous of purchasing any 
goods at Auction Prices may do so by calling at 
77 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

123 Court St., near Bowdoin Sq." This adver- 
tisement is typical in its bareness. The adver- 
tisers occupying the most space in those days, 
and in truth for nearly a half century afterwards, 
were the manufacturers of patent medicines. 
Their stamping-ground was usually on the first 
page, so that the first thing which greeted the 
reader's eye, on glancing at his newspaper, were 
long eulogies on the remarkable qualities of 
"Schenck's Pulmonic Syrup," "Buchan's Hun- 
garian Balsam of Life," "Dr. Warren's Sarsa- 
parilla. Tomato and Wild Cherry," and hordes 
of others of a similar nature. 

Much advertising was inserted into the news 
columns in such form that the reader could not 
recognize it as such until he had read well into it. 
The Boston Courier, in 1847, besides an account 
of General Scott's advance on Vera Cruz, and in 
precisely the same kind of type, under the head- 
ing "Gourand's Lectures on Chemistry," set 
forth this information: "Another wonderful effect 
of chemical combination may thus be illustrated. 
Mix in a glass equal quantities of a saturated 
solution of Carbonate of Potash and a saturated 
solution of Muriate of Lime. Stir the mixture 
and it will instantly become a solid. When 
chemistry can produce such wonders, it is not at 
all surprising that Gourand's Italian Medicated 
Soap should be invested with the power of remov- 
ing Pimples, Tan, Freckles, etc," 

This attempt of advertisers to confuse the 
reader was aided by playing with the headings. 
78 






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Advertising in 1847-1914 

When some event was given special prominence 
in the news, the advertisers used the same heading. 
For example, on January 2, 1863, the Boston 
Herald printed Lincoln's Emancipation Pro- 
clamation under the word, in large type, "Pro- 
clamation." On the same and the adjacent page, 
a dozen advertisements appeared under "Pro- 
clamation" set up in precisely the same way. 

The lack of classification of the newspaper 
advertisements in 1847 presents the amusing 
side of the subject. All the Boston dailies at 
that period had columns with headings "To Let," 
"Auctions," and "Board and Rooms." But 
regardless of fitness, the majority were lumped 
together, apparently in the order in which they 
had been received. On opening at random the 
files of an 1847 newspaper the following adver- 
tisements appear printed in order in the same 
column: — "To let in Temple St. a three story 
brick house"; "Bear's Oil at 12^ cents a bottle"; 
"S. L. Bedel would inform her friends that she 
will this day open at 154 Washington St. an 
elegant assortment of Ornaments for the head, 
beautiful Marabout Feathers, delicate Willows, 
and pretty Wreaths of Fruit and Flowers." 
This carelessness of classification was noticeable, 
although to a constantly less extent, for many 
years after 1847. In the Herald in 1863 a pro- 
bate notice appears between a "Poultry Rafile at 
18 Camden St.," and a sale of "Harness Leather." 

The changes in the character of the adver- 
tising in the years subsequent to 1847 were few. 
79 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

Newspapers at the end of the Civil War had 
approximately the same appearance as twenty 
years before. The only noteworthy change in 
this period was that the "wants ads" had become 
very well classified. About 1870 the leading 
news of the day began to be printed on the first 
page, and the more objectionable of the adver- 
tisements relegated to less conspicuous quarters. 

By the middle seventies, the character of the 
advertising begins to change rapidly. Firm 
names which are now recognized as standard, 
such as R. H. Stearns & Co., Jordan Marsh & 
Co., and Shepard, Norwell & Co., begin to appear. 
Stores of this class were beginning to advertise 
on an increasingly large scale. Often they would 
use a half, or even a whole column, a small adver- 
tisement from 1914 standards, but a great increase 
over the six lines of three decades before. Coin- 
cident with this improvement in the quality of 
advertising in the Boston newspapers came a 
very marked diminution in the proportion of 
advertising to news matter. This tendency was 
due to the increase in the size of the newspapers. 

About 1890, for the first time, advertisements 
began to occupy over a single column in width. 
The greatest advertisers were still the patent 
medicine manufacturers. Manufacturers of es- 
tablished lines of merchandise began to advertise 
extensively. It was not until well after 1890, 
however, that the big stores of Boston began to 
recognize the advantage of continual advertising. 
Once the movement was started, dry goods adver- 



Advertising in 1847-1914 

tisements grew rapidly, both in frequency and 
size. In 1894 one of the Boston stores pubHshed in 
the Herald an advertisement a whole page wide 
and a half page deep for a week at a time. By 
the end of the century the department stores had 
grown to be the largest class of advertisers. 

The greatest change of all in advertising, how- 
ever, came with the turn of the century. Whole 
page advertisements appeared with frequency. 
Great improvement in illustrating methods made 
it possible to insert half-tone cuts in advertise- 
ments. Huge financial announcements came, in 
step with the consoUdations of the first years of 
the new century. Industrial expansion was 
accompanied by advertising expansion. As stores 
doubled their size, they doubled their advertise- 
ments. And for all, advertising has proved, more 
truly than it ever was of speculation or com- 
petition, "the life of trade." 



81 



BOSTON AS A SHOPPING CITY 

By Heloise E. Hersey 

Civilized woman shops as naturally as she 
breathes. The Indian squaw grasps without 
discrimination whatever she can get, and delights 
in beads or blankets, hats or shoes with a complete 
disregard of the adaptability of each to her need. 
The first symptom of advance in the scale of living 
may be seen when she begins to choose and select, 
— to weigh advantage against price, to compare 
color and fabric, and to match both to her com- 
plexion and figure. The clerk on one side of the 
counter and the customer on the other write the 
history of society in the nations, whether the sale 
takes place in an Eastern bazaar with its dark- 
skinned merchant, its heavy perfumes, its long- 
drawn-out bargaining, and its final transfer of rich 
silk or precious stone, or whether it is made in the 
well-ordered, brilliantly lighted, highly organized 
American store, wath its army of clerks trained 
to forestall the customer's desire, its mechanical 
devices to save the customer's time and strength, 
and its beguiling display to develop and to tempt 
the customer's taste. 

The truth is that shopping is the vast barometer 

of social evolution. How far has the community 

climbed on the mountain path of progress ? How 

many stages since barbarism was left behind.'' 

83 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

How long before the nation shall instinctively 
choose the best, — sunshine and oxygen as against 
gloom and bad air, — durable and tasteful fabrics 
as against showy, shoddy ones? The market and 
the shop have the answers to these questions. 

The methods of shopping mark the passage of 
the years in the history of a town as sharply as 
the rings on an oak tree mark its age. Each 
community develops its peculiar type of buying 
and selling for the needs of the individual and the 
family. In Constantinople the merchant carries 
his silks and velvets to the private apartments of 
his rich customer. In Paris, every lure to eye 
and touch is brought to bear to induce the cus- 
tomer to cross the threshold of the fascinating 
shop. One may travel over the face of the earth 
and observe in close detail the methods by which 
the seller of various cities makes traffic with the 
buyer, and works out the genius of his town and 
his time in his business and to his profit. If the 
shopman is a true Bostonian, for example, nine 
chances out of ten he knows his Robert Browning, 
or at least his wife is a member of the Browning 
Society; so quoting to himself Browning's immor- 
tal line, "Life's business being just the terrible 
choice," he sets about making that choice easy 
rather than difficult, — happy rather than tire- 
some. Boston will do it in its own way, — as 
different from the ways of other cities as her 
winding streets and her innocent Frog Pond are 
different from Philadelphia's prim parallels or 
London's tragic Serpentine. 



Boston as a Shopping City 

From the point of view of the woman who buys, 
modern cities are divided into two great classes. 
Paris and New York are types of one class; 
London and Vienna and Moscow and Boston are 
types of the other. The Paris shop is made like 
the spider's web, — to catch the unwary fly of any 
race or color or plumpness. The window in the 
Rue de la Paix is dressed to attract the American 
or English woman, or the Parisian or Russian; 
and the trim demoiselle who serves the customer 
has an impersonal masterj^ of her business which 
impresses all alike, even if it is a bit chilling in its 
perfection. Not even your inability to speak 
her language melts her heart. She can sell you 
gloves and necklaces, — veritable imitation you 
may be sure, with a fine detachment, whether 
you are from Kansas or from Devonshire or from 
"the Provinces." So in New York — the Fifth 
Avenue clerk or the Seventh Avenue clerk is 
sublimely indifferent to your local habitation and 
your name. You may go to a famous confec- 
tioner ten times a year for five and twenty years, 
and the slender, black-robed woman who fills your 
modest order will write your address without a 
glimmer of a hint that she has ever heard it before. 
Whatever you are to her, you are not Yourself! 
Perhaps she condescends to recognize the Choicest 
of Her Choice, — but you need not aspire to join 
that charmed circle. 

So much for New York and Paris. Boston and 
London are otherwise. The shopper in those 
cities expects and finds a personal recognition and 
85 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

a friendly interest which would wander about in 
Paris like a cat in a strange garret. The advan- 
tages of a huge, impersonal city are many; but 
the wise woman will not despise the delights of a 
small community, — half village, half city, — where 
name and taste and purse of everybody are known 
to everybody else. In fact, when these more 
intimate relations are once established and 
enjoyed, they are prized as one prizes the con- 
veniences of home. It would be easy to enumer- 
ate a score of these personal satisfactions which 
come pleasantly to the surface of Boston shopping. 
For example, it is said that a certain man in a 
certain Boston shop knows the size of stocking 
worn by twice four hundred Boston women, any 
one of whom would feel it a definite personal slight 
for him to ask her the number of her hose or her 
address. A certain Boston florist hurries home 
from a short vacation on hearing of the death of a 
prominent man, "because it would be more trying 
for the family to order from a clerk the flowers for 
the funeral!" Not a woman experienced in 
Boston shopping but remembers with admiration 
the famous "Amanda," — whose strong face and 
gaunt figure were "features" of the store of R. H. 
Stearns for a generation. She knew the pattern 
of ginghams and muslins that had graced the 
South Shore and the North Shore for forty years. 
Her memory of marriages and intermarriages and 
cousinships and even of family disagreements made 
her a perfect "Social Register" for the newcomer 
to Boston's inner circle. 



Boston as a Shopping City 

One might easily make a collection of illustra- 
tions of the way in which customer and clerk in 
Boston take the personal relation as a matter of 
course, as much to be counted on as a business 
guaranty of goods or a prompt payment of bills. 
A customer at the small wares counter at one 
of the large stores heard one morning as she was 
selecting her needles and pins a queer noise beneath 
the counter. "Wliat is that?" she asked; "it 
sounds like a small and lonesome kitten!" "It is 
a kitten," replied the clerk; " Miss Johnson brought 
it in an hour ago and asked me to take care of it 
for her until afternoon. It cries unless I hold it 
all the time!" So she nestled the tiny cat up to 
her neck, as if the care of it was a perfectly natural 
and agreeable part of the day's work! 

This personal relation between buyer and seller 
is the very climax of the art of shopping as prac- 
ticed by the dealers of London. Huge as is the 
business of the city, the old firms have never 
outgrown their early habit of regarding a patron 
as a valuable, personal asset. A stray American 
in the bookstore of Bernard Quaritch, — famous 
among the booksellers of the world, — was amused 
and amazed to hear an English customer suggest 
that the clerk should put a corner of Cheshire 
cheese into the budget of books which were to 
go to the "shooting box" in Scotland. The clerk 
seemed to regard the Cheshire cheese with the 
same friendly attention which he bestowed on the 
mixture of new novels and constitutional law 
which his customer ordered. 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

Emphasis on the personal relation between 
buyer and seller is nowhere more noticeable than 
in Boston, and nowhere in Boston more recognized 
by everybody concerned than at the sixty-seven- 
year-old establishment of R. H. Stearns and 
Company. At the close of the Christmas holi- 
days of 1911 the firm issued a letter of cordial 
thanks to its employees for their hearty co- 
operation in the effort to make the best hohday 
business of their history. The phrases of the 
letter were full of real feeling, and one saw that 
customers and employees and partners were aUke 
included in the general glow of satisfaction. 

Next door to Stearns' famous corner stands 
old St. Paul's Church. It is in keeping with the 
traditions of the parish and its long career of 
helpfulness, and equally in keeping with the 
tradition of the firm for good neighborliness, that 
the church should recently have sent a letter to 
every person employed by its neighbor ofiFering 
its help to each and every one of them in any way 
in which a church can serve. Intellectual and 
spiritual needs are recognized by both great 
institutions as being as imperative as the needs of 
the body. Church and store may work together. 
The doctor and the trained nurse make their 
rounds of the busy aisles of the shop, and priest 
and organist and choir boy and sexton give the 
welcome of religion to the worker who has also the 
claim of the Christian neighbor. By such means 
do gracious human activities grow and spread. 

From one point of view modern life appears 
like a vast machine, the wheels of which are made 



Boston as a Shopping City 

of helpless human beings. Competition, the 
division of labor, the complete separation of the 
product from the person who produces it, — all 
these great economic facts which have come to 
pass since our grandmothers shopped seem to 
have conspired to take out of buying and selling 
all recognition of the person of buyer and seller 
and maker. But in the shop and in society there 
is working slowly and steadily another force, 
counteracting the tendency to make men and 
women into machines, and divorce their work 
from their welfare. This force goes by many 
names. One day it is called Socialism, another 
day it is called Human Brotherhood, another 
day it is called fantastically an "Uphft Move- 
ment." The names are only masquerades to 
conceal a shy reluctance on the part of men and 
women to speak the old-fashioned phrase of 
Christian Love. There are many evils in modern 
business Hfe, and in modern society as related to 
business. But there is also a growing passion in 
the hearts of good folk to amehorate those evils. 
There must be great factories where the workers 
are numbered by hundreds and are classed as 
"hands." But there are also employers to whom 
every pair of hands represents a living, toiling, 
hoping person. There are huge shops where the 
long procession of employees and customers moves 
through the aisles with no more personal recogni- 
tion than as if they were so many mechanical 
toys; whole cities where the struggle for the 
newest kind of freedom has scarcely begun. In 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

other cities it is well advanced, — the freedom of 
the community where modern civilization joins 
hands with brotherly love, and makes life worth 
living for all sorts and conditions of men. 

Boston has never been so greedy of gain as some 
cities. She has never been so much in a hurry as 
others. Her shops have grown large and tempt- 
ing, but they have never lost the air of those days 
when everybody in the town knew everybody 
else, and they all met at one or another of the 
historic "corners" in a sort of natural friendliness. 
Clerks and customers and owners and errand boys 
knew each other's names, and respected each 
other's work, and regarded each other's needs. 
Today the wisest of the merchants of Boston are 
taking that old friendliness and cherishing and 
invigorating it as a substantial part of their 
business. Recognition on both sides of the 
counter is counted as an asset by the firm and a 
privilege by the customer. In fact, it gives to 
Boston its distinctive character as a shopping 
city. "Do you know the name of every clerk 
in this store?" asked a New York woman of her 
Boston hostess in the midst of a morning of 
shopping. "No," was the reply; "but I wish I 
did, for most of them know my name and more- 
over they know what I like!" Perhaps this 
personal touch makes the stranger within our 
gates a little more strange than she likes to be, but 
to the Native Born it makes Boston the pleasant- 
est shopping city in the world. 



90 



AN HISTORIC CORNER 

TREMONT STREET AND TEMPLE PLACE 
By Walter K. Watkins 
Of the Bostonian Society 

One of Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories of old 
New England is prefaced by a chapter which in 
effect describes the evolution from a wilderness 
to civilization: first the silence and solitude of 
the forest; then the Indian, steaUng by, bent upon 
war or the chase; then the explorer, the hunter 
and the smoke of the settler's cabin and finally, 
after a couple of centuries of slow development, 
orderly towns and cities and dense population. 

With much the same thought one may con- 
template a number of historic localities in Boston, 
and shutting out the eager, insistent present — 
the tall buildings and hurrying throngs, the 
electric cars, automobiles and drays — step back 
into the twilight and the silence of the past, and 
picture the successive steps of settlement. 

The present corner of Tremont Street and 
Temple Place possesses much historic interest. 
One must grope backward in time almost three 
hundred years to find this particular acre of 
ground unoccupied by men, and for most of that 
long period it has been the center of the city's 
activities and growth. By the middle of the 
17th century it was a half cleared pasture, and 
here a little later was built the home of one of the 
91 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

first born in the colony. From this house we 
can imagine the outlook over a southward strag- 
gling path, rough and but half broken, along the 
Common, a mere bit of partially reclaimed marsh 
set aside as pasturage for the cows of the settle- 
ment while over all broods the silence of the 
unbroken, unexplored continent. Precarious in 
the extreme was the foothold of white settlements 
which only at Manhattan and a few other places 
broke the monotony of the wild shore line between 
Boston and Jamestown. 

Both of these centers of European civiliza- 
tion, however, were more remote and shadowy to 
each other than Ispahan or Cape Town to the 
Americans of the twentieth century. 

As the decades passed, the house at Tremont 
Street near what is now Temple Place, slowly 
became a venerable mansion about which clus- 
tered the home memories of birth and marriage 
and death. Owner succeeded owner, and unlike 
the usual American community in which all the 
local events, hke incidents in a moving picture, 
are jumbled into an abnormally short space of 
time, the period of the colonial home at Tre- 
mont Street and Temple Place was long and 
deliberate, and stretched far into a second cen- 
tury. It suggests the age of Boston compared 
with most American cities, that our retrospect from 
the present to the days of the Revolution covers 
a shorter period than that other and earlier period 
spanned by the old House of Usher, from the date 
of its erection in 1684 to its final removal in 1830. 
92 



An Historic Corner 

There are, indeed, few houses in the United 
States at the present time more venerable than 
was the Usher mansion when finally torn down. 
In the following pages the history of this man- 
sion and the site upon which it stood is traced 
in some detail. 

In the Days of the Settlement 
In the month of June, 1630, Governor Win- 
throp's little fleet threaded its way between the 
green wooded islands of the harbor of Boston and 
passed the Mary and John anchored off Nan- 
tasket. The newcomers were saluted from Sam- 
uel Maverick's palisaded house at Winnisimmet, 
and the Spragues welcomed them to the shores 
of the Mystic. On the south slope of the west 
hill of that crown of peaks which gave the name 
of Trimount to the settlement, dwelt William 
Blackstone in a thatched house flanked by a 
ruder garden. 

After a score of years let us ascend the Beacon 
Hill, the center of the crown, and view the growth 
of the town of Boston. 

Houses fringe the water front from Merry's 
Pomt at the North End to Fort Point at Fort 
Hill. They are thickly clustered about the 
Town Cove, which indented the shore to the 
present Adams Square. On the High Street to 
the water (now State Street) were the homes of 
the town fathers and on the High or Fore Street 
to Roxbury, now Washington Street, were the 
houses of prosperous tradesmen, their shops on 
93 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

the ground floor and their dwelHngs above, as is 
the custom still in Old England. These houses 
on the highway to Roxbury were each surrounded 
by the goodly part of an acre of garden with 
orchards in the rear. On the west side of this 
street, south of Winter Street, these orchards 
extended back to a fringe of pastures which 
skirted the "Common land" on the east. One 
of these pastures, an acre and a half, was between 
the site of St. Paul's Church and West Street. 
In it grazed the cattle of Henry Webb, a prosperous 
merchant, who dwelt opposite the Market Place, 
now the Old State House site. In poor grazing 
seasons a pasture which he owned on Fort Hill also 
gave forage to his cattle. His warehouse faced the 
Town Dock and his vessels unloading at his wharf 
lay where a century later Faneuil Hall was erected. 
Back of his house, which stood on the corner 
of what is now State and Devonshire Streets, 
lived William Parsons, a carpenter and "sley- 
maker." Parsons was destined to help make 
history as one of the "Fifth Monarchy" men 
who ran a bloody riot in London Streets in 1661, 
but he did not meet the fate of his leader that 
other Boston man, Thomas Venner, who was 
hung, drawn and quartered, for Parsons slipped 
away in the crowd and fled back to New England. 
There, when well advanced in years, and known 
as "Old Will Parsons, " he sold drinks in front of 
his house. It was to him that Webb sold his 
pasture but by 1646 Parsons had disposed of the 
land to Richard Carter, also a carpenter. 
94 



An Historic Corner 

Carter lived not far away on the High Street 
to Roxbury, south of West Street, and on the 
site of what became later the "Lamb Tavern" 
and is now covered by the Adams House. His 
wife was evidently an advanced woman, or suffra- 
gette of the period, as she was admonished twice 
for seditious words. She survived her husband 
and married John Hunt of Charlestown. A 
daughter, Mary, for a second husband espoused 
a neighbor, Joseph Co well, who lived on the south 
corner of West and Washington Streets. From 
his residence there West Street was early known 
as Cowell's Lane, and down the lane to the pas- 
ture he led the horses that he rode as messenger 
for the Colony to Hartford and New York. 

In 1680 Mrs. Hunt and her daughter Mrs. 
Cowell, sold the pasture to Hezekiah Usher 
Junior. Hezekiah Usher, Senior, was the first 
bookseller of the colony. He lived on the north 
side of the Market Place and his warehouse in 
the rear faced the Town Dock. He died in 1676, 
leaving a goodly fortune and two sons to quarrel 
over it and evoke the aid of the law. Six months 
after his father's death Hezekiah Usher married 
Bridget, the widow of Dr. Leonard Hoar, Presi- 
dent of Harvard College. Mrs. Usher's parents 
were Lord John Lisle, who was assassinated at 
Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1664, and Lady Alicia 
Lisle, beheaded at Winchester, England, in 1685. 
After a few years of married life, spent in tJie house 
he erected in 1684 in Carter's pasture. Usher 
developed such eccentricities that in 1687 Mrs. 
95 




mm \ I 




An Historic Corner ^ 



Usher and her daughter, by her previous mar- 
riage, left Usher and sailed for England, the 
husband weeping bitterly. 

Left alone. Usher was discontented and unhappy. 
In May, 1688, he leased his house to John West, 
secretary to Andros, the new governor of the 
colony. West had come to New York in 1678, 
became the town clerk and married the daughter 
of Thomas Rudyard, lieutenant governor of New 
Jersey. It was shortly after the arrival of West 
in Boston, in June, 1688, at the Usher house, 
that Andros had his stormy interview with Judge 
Sewall in regard to occupying the Old South 
Meeting House as a place of worship. Soon 
afterward Andros was confined in the Fort and 
West in the common prison, until they were sent 
back to England in February, 1689. Two years 
later, in 1691, West died in his lodgings in St. 
Martins, Ludgate parish, London. In a few 
years his widow again married, having obtained 
for West's services grants of lands at Barnegat 
and elsewhere in New Jersey. For a third hus- 
band she married Andrew Hamilton, speaker of 
the Pennsylvania Assembly. Her daughter mar- 
ried Chief Justice Allen and her grand-daughter 
was the wife of the son of Richard Penn, last 
proprietary governor of Pennsylvania. 

When West vacated the Usher house it was 
rented to Waitstill Winthrop, grandson of the first 
governor. Winthrop was a prominent citizen 
of Boston, a judge, councilor, and of high rank 
in the mihtia. In 1692 his house was brilliant 
7 97 




Waitstill Winthrop 



An Historic Corner 

with illumination when the province govern- 
ment began under the new charter. In Septem- 
ber of the same year, it was the scene of stately 
festivities when his daughter, Anne, was married 
to Major John Richards. Here also Winthrop 
conferred with his townsmen in regard to that 
epidemic of witchcraft which convulsed New 
England in 1692. The owner of the house, Heze- 
kiah Usher, with his many eccentricities, did not 
escape suspicion, and was accused by Susanna 
Sheldon of Salem. She declared that he stuck 
pins into her, but his brother and Winthrop pre- 
vented prosecution. 

In the winter of 1696-7 while Usher was on a 
journey, he fell from his horse in the town of 
Maiden and was taken to the tavern of Isaac 
Hill in an injured condition, where he became 
worse, mentally and physically. His brother was 
made his guardian and in April, 1697, he was 
removed to Lynn, where he died in July. Usher's 
body was brought to Boston and placed in his 
father's tomb in the King's Chapel Burial Ground. 
Passers-by can readily read the inscription on the 
tomb located next the "old Registry Building." 
His will clearly shows his disordered mind and 
in it he bitterly denounces his wife. 

Mrs. Usher had attempted to obtain the family 
home before her husband's death, upon the 
authority of a deed of gift given at the time of 
marriage. An effort to eject Winthrop the 
tenant was unsuccessful, but upon Usher's death 
Mr. Winthrop moved; but suits were brought 



An Historic Corner 

by Judge Sewall as Mrs. Usher's attorney against 
the executor and tenant for possession. Mrs. 
Usher was successful in the lower and higher courts 
and the case was appealed by Usher's executor 
to the Privy Council in England. Their confir- 
mation of Mrs. Usher's right was received in 1700 
and she came into possession of the house. Judge 
Sewall presented to his client a cord of wood from 
Muddy River (as Brookline was then called), to 
start housekeeping. Mrs. Usher held possession of 
the house till 1714. Her death occurred in 1725. 

In the Days of the Province 
In 1714 Mrs. Usher sold the mansion to Francis 
Wainwright of Ipswich. His father, Colonel 
John, left him considerable wealth. He also 
inherited through his mother, a niece of Rev. 
John Norton, lands in Ipswich granted that min- 
ister. Coming to Boston, Wainwright married a 
daughter of Governor Joseph Dudley. His busi- 
ness ventures, however, were unsuccessful, and 
he mortgaged the Usher house together with 
other properties. The mortgage upon the former 
was not paid; he was sued in 1720 for possession, 
and transferred the Usher house to Deacon 
Jonathan Williams, a wine cooper. 

Wainwright was never prominent in town affairs 
in Boston. He did hold the office of constable, but 
his only official act, if it could be so termed, 
was a failure to warn a town meeting in 1713, 
and for this he was censured with his fellow con- 
stables, equally guilty. He died in 1722 and his 
101 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

widow married again, as was the custom in those 
days. 

The new proprietor of the Usher house, Deacon 
WilUams, had married, as his second wife, Re- 
becca, the widow of James Townsend, wine mer- 
chant. With her he took her worldly goods, 
which were on sale in the wine shop of her late 
husband on Cornhill (now Washington Street) 
and known as the sign of "The Black Boy and 
Butt." 

Williams' residence was in Savage's Court off 
Cornhill, which later took the name of Williams 
Court. This name it still retains with its alias 
of Pie Alley. Williams also owned a block of 
three houses on Portland Street, then Cold Lane. 

The mansion house of Usher now secured a 
tenant of more note in the person of Rev. Roger 
Price of King's Chapel. Of an ancient Welsh 
family which had settled in Buckinghamshire, he 
was educated for the church. After his course 
at Oxford he went as a chaplain on the coast of 
Guinea. There he was captured by pirates, and 
on his release went to St. Anne's, Jamaica, as 
chaplain. Both experiences contributed to ill 
health and he returned to England. His health 
not improving, he accepted a position in Boston, 
arriving in 1729. He first lodged with Peter 
Feust or Feuart, a Dutchman, on Marlboro now 
Washington Street. His relations with Rev. 
Henry Harris and Rev. Thomas Harward, suc- 
cessively the rectors of King's Chapel, were not 
the most pleasant. At last, in 1733, he decided 
102 




Wedding Gown (1735) of Mistress Rooer Price 



An Historic Corner 

to return to England and even engaged passage. 
Contrary winds, however, delayed departure, 
and while waiting to sail he attended Trinity 
Church and saw Miss Elizabeth Bull. All thoughts 
of departure were driven from his mind ; he secured 
presentation to the young lady and assiduously 
paid her court. Miss Bull was regarded as one 
of the beauties of that period. She was the grand- 
child of old Sergeant Bull, who kept the "Bull 
Tavern" by the waterside at the foot of Summer 
Street, the "Seven Star Lane" of those days. 
After a lengthy courtship they were married in 
1735 and went to reside in the Usher house. We 
can imagine the dainty bride clothed in the finely 
embroidered wedding gown, which with the linen 
of her young children is still preserved and is now 
in the Collections of the Bostonian Society. 

Meanwhile, Deacon Williams was gathered to 
his fathers, and once more the spirit of litigation, 
seemingly framed into the very timbers of the 
house by its first owner, again appeared. Con- 
troversy over the partition of the deacon's estate 
brought the matter before the Superior Court of 
Judicature and on an appeal to the Governor and 
Council, the property was sold in 1742 to Mr. 
Stephen Greenleaf. In a few years Mr. Roger 
Price and family removed to Hopkinton, where he 
established a church and Mr. Greenleaf became 
the occupant of the mansion as well as its owner. 



103 





wj-vw i 



^^'«l'lf, 



^^^ \r 



i' 



SHERiFf Stephen Gbbenleaf 




I 



I 



An Historic Corner 



The Revolutionary Period 

Stephen Greenleaf was born in Newbury in 
1704. Inheriting wealth, he married in 1731 and 
came to reside in Boston. In 1757 he was ap- 
pointed sheriff of Suffolk County. In August fol- 
lowing Greenleaf 's appointment, Thomas Pownall 
arrived as governor of the province and in the next 
year Thomas Hutchinson became heutenant-gov- 
ernor. In September (1758), General Lord Am- 
herst arrived in Boston and his troops encamped 
on the Common near the old Usher mansion on 
their way to Lake George. The same year saw 
Pownall depart for South Carolina, and the sheriff 
early in August headed a detachment of the gov- 
ernor's troop of guards and rode to Wrentham to 
welcome the new governor, Francis Bernard, and 
act as his escort to Boston. 

In December, 1758, Greenleaf, from the bal- 
cony of the Town House, proclaimed the new 
Ejng, George the Third, and a few days later 
assisted in the funeral ceremonies for the late 
King. 

Soon began the oppression of the colony through 
acts of the crown oflBcers, more especially those 
of the revenue and customs. Because of his 
official position Greenleaf became an actor in the 
scenes and incidents resulting from the opposi- 
tion of Otis and his friends to the writs of assist- 
ance. Upon an August day in 1765 word was 
brought him that Bute and Oliver (the stamp 
officer) were hanging in effigy from the Liberty 
105 




ri 



'I 




^^ 



M -^ 




An Historic Corner 

Tree. Hastening to the scene he was prevented 
from removing the figures, but was assured they 
would be taken down. This was done in the 
evening and they were burnt on the Common. 
Hutchinson and the sheriff hearing reports of 
Ohver's treatment by the mob, wended their way 
to the latter 's house in Milk Street, but were 
obliged themselves to take safety in flight. These 
demonstrations, caused by the Stamp Act, were 
of a different nature when repeated in May, 
1766, upon its repeal. Greenleaf, from the win- 
dows of his house, saw the erection on the Com- 
mon of a pyramid, illuminated by 280 lamps. 
His neighbor, John Hancock, upon the other side 
of the Common, treated his fellow townsmen to 
Madeira wine, and the Sons of Liberty set off 
fireworks in front of the work-house on what is 
now Park Street and entertained their friends 
within with refreshments of a liquid nature. 

This, however, was but a lull in the storm. 
In March, 1768, the sheriff again received word 
that the Liberty Tree had borne fresh fruit and 
that Paxton and Williams, customs officers, were 
hanging from the boughs. Before the sheriff's 
arrival, however, the effigies were removed. 

In September, 1766, Greenleaf had assisted the 
customs officers in their attempt to search the 
house of Daniel Malcolm, the patriot, on Fleet 
Street, but they were prevented in their purpose 
by a great gathering of the people. In June, 
1768, the customs officers again met with opposi- 
tion for seizure of the sloop Liberty. This vessel, 

107 



An Historic Corner 

which had lain at the wharf of its owner, John 
Hancock, for a month and had been used to store 
oil and tar, was seized, as its contents had not 
been entered for export. The crowd after han- 
dling the officers roughly dragged a boat of the 
"Collector" up what is now Washington Street 
to the Liberty Tree opposite Frog Lane (Boylston 
Street) . It was then taken to the Common, where 
Greenleaf and other onlookers watched it ascend 
in smoke and flame. News of the affair reached 
England. Rumors of troops to be sent to the 
town from the mother country became current. 
One noon the sheriff, casting his eye across the 
Common, noticed the beacon on Beacon Hill was 
prepared to be hghted. Hastily climbing the 
slope he quietly removed the signal which was 
to announce the arrival of the troops. They came 
in September and with bayonets fixed and colors 
flying, marched to the Common. Barracks were 
needed for them and the Manufactury House, 
where Hamilton Place now extends, was selected. 
It had been leased to Elisha Brown, a weaver, 
and he objected to vacating. The law was evoked 
and the sheriff and Hutchinson attempted to get 
possession. A weaver leaving through a cellar 
window one noon was pushed aside by Greenleaf 
who entered and soldiers were posted in the cellar. 
Brown held the fort in the upper stories, and 
successfully, for the soldiers were withdrawn in a 
few weeks. 

It was in 1768 that the sheriff was told by Harri- 
son Gray, the province treasurer, as he handed 
109 






^ 




V^'^-" -• ^''(of^-"^=- 



An Historic Corner 

him an execution against Samuel Adams, that 
he knew his duty and if he failed he would be 
accountable. But the sheriff as well as his 
fellow townsmen, patriots and loyalists, were 
lenient in serving a distress warrant on Adams, 
in his unfortunate position as tax collector, and 
amicably settled with him his accounts. 

At the trial of the soldiers for the Boston Mas- 
sacre, Greenleaf performed his official duties as 
sheriff as he had done previously when Robinson 
and others were charged with the assault on James 
Otis. He presented himself at Faneuil Hall while 
the reports of the tea importers were read and 
ordered the town's people to disperse. These 
were all in the line of his official duties, and though 
after the evacuation of Boston, in April, 1776, his 
arrest was ordered, Hke many other loyalists and 
office-holders under the crown, he was left in 
possession of his property. In 1765 he had been 
licensed as an inn-holder and during the siege 
he had many British officers billeted in his house. 

One morning in 1795 Samuel Adams, then 
governor, who lived just back of Greenleaf on 
Winter Street, was told that the "old sheriff" 
was dead. He had died at the ripe age of ninety- 
one and many recalled the austere but kindly 
man who had displayed considerable tact during 
the stormy days before the Revolution. 

A granddaughter who lived with him in his 

declining years married Charles Bulfinch, the 

architect. The State House on Beacon Hill was 

one of Bulfinch 's buildings. The beginning of 

111 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

its erection the "old sherifiE" viewed from the 
windows of the Usher house. 



A French Venture 
A daughter of Sheriff Greenleaf married Chief 
Justice Martin Howard of North Carolina and 
she with the other executors of her father, sold 
the house and gardens in 1796. It came into 
possession of Mrs. Hepsibah (Clark) Swan, wife 
of James Swan, who was born in Scotland 
in 1754. He came to Boston as a youth and was 
employed with Henry Kjiox in the book shop of 
Nicholas Bowes in Cornhill. He first came into 
notice in 1772 by writing a pamphlet against the 
slave trade. When hostilities commenced after 
the "Tea Party," of which he was a member, he 
was an assistant in the treasury office of the 
province and secretary to the Board of War. 
He was the companion of Joseph Warren, as a 
volunteer, at Bunker Hill, but fortunately es- 
caped from the field with the loss of his coat and a 
broken gun. In May, 1770, he 
was commissioned a captain in 
Crafts' Artillery and in Novem- 
ber made a major and served in 
the Continental service. In 1788 
he was deputy adjutant general 
of militia. From 1779 to 1781 
he was part owner in the pri- 
vateer Boston and ships Leighton 
and Prosper and brigantine 
Nancy. These ventures en- 
112 



Charles Bulfinch 




Days and Ways in Old Boston 

abled him to purchase the estate of the loyalist 
Nathaniel Hatch, son of Col. Estes Hatch, in 
Dorchester. In 1784 Swan bought Burnt Coast 
Island, Lincoln County, Me. This he paid for 
with depreciated Continental currency, a shrewd 
condition inserted in the resolve of the General 
Court. 

The financial conditions of the new republic 
were unfavorable to Swan's ventures and he left 
Boston in January 1788. His most pressing cred- 
itor was Patrick Jeffries, against whose treatment 
he expressed himself most bitterly. He went to 
Havre and Rouen in France, where he investig- 
ated French manufactures. On his arrival in 
France he advanced the interests of the States 
and in 1790 published in French six letters ad- 
dressed to Lafayette on the causes of the opposi- 
tion to commerce between France and the States. 
In 1790 Swan attempted to negotiate a loan of 
$2,000,000 for the States from some citizens in 
Genoa. As an American whose country was a 
refuge he assisted many royalist refugees to Amer- 
ica and also shipped the household effects of 
others. As many of these people were unfortu- 
nate enough to lose their lives, a Boston wit of 
the last century observed "The guillotine took 
their heads and Swan took their trunks." 

After the horrors of the Revolution, Mrs. Swan 
joined her husband in his house in the Rue Croix 
de Petit Champs, and in 1793 he was able to 
say that he had paid his debts and re-estr.blished 
his ancient fortune and would return, — which he 
114 



•^.-...■'•iu,,: 
















Days and Ways in Old Boston 

did in 1794. In the following year he visited 
Philadelphia with a project to go to Spain in an 
official capacity. 

About this time he became possessed of 25,000 
acres in Hardin County, Kentucky, and in 1796 
he purchased the Greenleaf estate and placed 
it in his wife's name and also some lots bought at 
auction from the town, a part of the site of the 
future Colonnade Row, At this time his finances 
again became involved and he sailed in 1797 to 
France, once more to recoup his fortunes. He was 
not as successful as during the days of the French 
Revolution, for ten years later, in 1808, Swan was 
arrested for a debt due, unjustly as he claimed, to 
Jean Claud Picquet, a Paris merchant. He was 
imprisoned for this debt in St. Pelagic prison and 
stayed there until the Revolution in 1830 opened 
his prison door. He did not long survive his liber- 
ation and died the 18th of March, 1831. Swan's 
wife had died at their Dorchester house in 1825. 
Her death invited an attempt by the French cred- 
itor to secure payment of Swan's debt to him. 
The original creditor died before Mrs. Swan 
and in 1825 his son Anthonie Furcy Picquet 
came to Boston and applied for letters of adminis- 
tration on the estate of his father who had died in 
Paris. His property disclosed were 18 Bills of 
Exchange, drawn by Freytag on James Swan, 
for 521,646 francs, and accepted by Swan in 1811. 
This in 1825 with interest amounted to $97,808. 
The Probate Court not granting administration, 
Picquet went to the General Court and got a 



An Historic Corner 



resolve in his favor. The case then went to the 
Supreme Court and suits were brought in the 
United States Circuit Court. Meanwhile during 
the slow course of the law, Picquet became a 
resident of Boston and acted as the French com- 
mercial agent and later as vice-consul. Swan 
died while the suits were pending. In his will he 
left a provisional legacy to the city of Boston to 
be invested in real estate and farms in the vicinity 
of Boston until a fund of $100,000 was formed. 
With this an "Orphan Academy" was to be built. 
But unfortunately for Boston, his estate was in- 
solvent as the Picquet claim was allowed in the 
courts and debts proved to the amounts of $127,- 
000 and $5,473.34. The Swan assets permitted 
a payment of but 8.0625 cents on a dollar, and 
on the 25th of July, 1836, Picquet asked for 
the amount due to transmit to his brother Cyril 
Simon, Baron Picquet in Paris. Thus ended the 
career of the most litigious of the possessors of 
the Usher house. 

Washington Gardens 
Swan's own name does not appear in the Boston 
directory of 1809 as living on Common Street 
(now Tremont), as he had taken up his enforced 
residence in St. Pelagic the previous year, but 
the house and grounds were occupied by the 
Swan family or remained vacant, till 1813. The 
next year it was the home of John P. Whitwell. 
Mr. Whitwell previously resided on Pond Street 
now Bedford Street. He was an apothecary and 
117 




Announcement of the Washington Gardens 
(From The Centinel, July 17, 1819) 



i 



An Historic Corner 

his shop was then located at 48 Newbury, now 
Washington, Street, There one could get Dr. 
Church's celebrated Cough Drops, likewise his 
much esteemed Pectoral Pills; and there, also, 
could be obtained a century ago, June, 1811, for 
the first time, "Ballstown and Soda Water." 

" The proprietors with much trouble and expense 
have erected an entire new apparatus by means of 
which they flatter themselves they have succeeded in 
preparing a beverage equal in strength and pungency 
to the boasted soda water of London or New York." 

After two years' occupancy, Mr, Whitwell 
removed his residence to Summer Street. 

The next tenant was John H. Schaffer, an 
auctioneer, who decided to devote the house and 
grounds to purposes of entertainment. On the 
22nd of June, 1815, the "Washington Gardens" 
were opened. Mr. Hewitt was made the director. 
Soon after the name of "Vauxhall" was added. 
One advertisement announced: "the concerts 
have been monstrously attended and fashionably 
resorted to and all the arrangements found neat, 
elegant and orderly, the music excellent." 

Later in the summer variegated lamps were 
hung in the foliage of the garden, and fireworks 
were displayed. These last were given by David 
from the Tivoli Gardens, Paris, "the projector of 
the grand display on the Champ de mars." 
The summers of 1816 and 1817 saw similar attrac- 
tions at the "Gardens." In May, 1817, gas 
lights (which had been introduced in Boston in 
1815) were installed there. 
119 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

On the 9th of December, 1818, William Sullivan, 
agent of Swan, executed a lease for ten years to 
ShafiFer at an annual rental of $1500 for the house 
and gardens. Shaffer was also given the privilege 
to erect any buildings. In 1818 for the first time 
the theatre seats in the gardens were covered with 
an awning. In the summer of 1819 Shaffer 
erected a new brick amphitheatre at a cost of 
$4,000. The work was done under the super- 
vision of Gridley Bryant, a builder and engineer. 
Later, in 1824, Bryant designed the United States 
Bank, with its granite pillars 24 feet long. He 
was also noted for his inventions. These, how- 
ever, invited much litigation and he died a poor 
man. 

A typical advertisement of the Washington 
Gardens at that period was the following: 

AMPHITHEATRE 

Washington Gardens 

"The public are respectfully informed that the 
Amphitheatre will be opened on Friday evening, July 
2nd, with an appropriate address under the immediate 
direction of Mr. Bernard. The entertainments on 
the first night will consist of recitations, songs and 
dances. The house will be finished in a style of 
neatness superior to anything of the kind on this 
continent. The whole of the scenery, painting 
and decorations designed and executed by Mr. Wor- 
rell. The stage is very handsome and commodious. 
The circle is floored and provided with settees after 
the Paris fashion; the boxes will be handsomely 
fitted up and the whole building properly ventilated. 
Mr. Bernard, Mrs. Wheatley, and Mr. Batterton of 
120 



An Historic Corner 

great celebrity trom the London theatres will recite 
and sing. Mr. Jones and others are engaged to form 
the dances, and in the course of the summer much 
novelty of talent, and many new pieces will be 
brought forward with every care, attention and 
decoration to render them worthy of public patron- 
age."— (Cenh'ne^, SO June, 1819.) 

The old Usher house was used during the winter 
season of 1819-20 for the entertainment of parties, 
societies and the clubs of that period. Wines, 
liquors and such luxuries as the markets of those 
days afforded, were advertised. A few gentlemen 
boarders were accommodated and the stable on 
the premises gave the same care as the livery 
stables of the town. The amphitheatre was to 
be let for any respectable exhibition. In the 
previous summer there had appeared "Pepin with 
a company of equestrians and elegant horses 
after an absence from the metropolis of twelve 
years." 

Amateurs were in evidence in those days as now, 
and the young men of the Philo-Dramatic 
Society, of which J. F. Buckingham was president 
and John Brook treasurer, performed Coleman's 
"Heir at Law" in July, 1820. At this perform- 
ance the settees in the front circle were reserved 
for the Governor and his staff. The Selectmen 
were also guests on the same occasion. This 
summer Mr. Brunei had his "philosophical 
Exhibition, and Enchanted Lady placed in a box 
disappearing to a nearby pedestal." 

Dr. Preston with his exliilarating Nitrous Oxide 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

Gas appeared in October as the following hand- 
bill advertised. 

" Bostonians are charmed with various feats 
At John H. Shaffer's splendid Garden treats, 
WTiere West is manager and justly draws 
A host of auditors and great applause. 
By showing Yeoman riding upside dowTi, 
Where Godean proved the wonder of the town, 
WTiere X X X X is retailed by the single glass. 
And Doctor Preston gave his Oxide Gas." 

In the summer of 1820, on the estate north of 
the "Gardens," was erected St. Paul's Church. 
Shaffer erected in the northwest corner of his 
Gardens a workshop 40 x 14. This he leased to 
Solomon Willard, the architect of the church and 
of Bunker Hill Monument. The next year a 
similar structure was built 30 x 17 and leased to 
Henry Ayling, a turner or wood-worker. In 
August, 1821, Guille made balloon ascensions from 
the " Gardens, " landing with a parachute. It was 
also in this month, on the eighth, that the West 
Point Cadets formed a part of the audience. 
They were encamped on the Common between 
the Tremont Street Mall and the "Old Elm." 
On the 11th "on the Ancient militarj^ square" 
on the Common in front of the State House they 
were presented a stand of colors by the inhabitants. 

In June, 1822, appeared a new announcement 
of the Gardens as the "City Theatre." Mrs. 
Barrett and Mrs. Reed from the New York 
Theatre, Miss Turner from New Orleans, and 
Miss Johnson from New York, appeared during 
122 



An Historic Corner 

the summer, till September, when the Boston 
Theatre on Federal Street reopened. The prices 
were, for the saloon seventy-five cents, boxes 
fifty cents, and pit twenty-five cents. 

In 1825, in honor of Lafayette's visit, his figure 
was displayed in a transparency placed at the 
south part of the Gardens. Five large stars 
also faced to the north. Perhaps among those 
present some recalled that the owner of the Gar- 
dens was still confined in his French prison. 
A performance this season concluded with 
"Optical Allusions or Robertson's Phantasma- 
goria." In those days "Venelli and Lemon, Ice 
Creams and Fruits" could be obtained during 
the performances, especially after the fireworks 
or while witnessing the "Grand Indian War 
Dance" as performed by a company of Oneida 
Indians in October, 1828. 

During the last few years of Schaifer's lease the 
amphitheatre was mainly devoted to equestrian 
performances. In the summer, fireworks were the 
great attraction. In 1828 there befell to Schaffer 
the fate of previous owners and tenants and he 
in turn took part in the drama of the law. In 
January he had contracted to pay a theatre license 
of $1,000 and gave bonds for $5,000. He found 
this a hardship and paid $25 weekly when the 
theatre was open. During 16 weeks he paid in 
$400. The city sued him for the balance and won 
a verdict in the Superior Court. Schaffer appealed 
to the Supreme Court, where the verdict was 
affirmed and Schaffer retired from the Gardens 
123 




The Masonic Temple, Tremont Street and Temple Place, about 1875 



An Historic Corner 



as his lease was soon to expire. He again became 
an auctioneer and died in a few years. 

Freemasonry and the Law 
Through a gate about seventy -five feet from the 
site of St. Paul's Church on Common Street (now 
Tremont), in 1800, one passed into a lane running 
just back of the Usher house. This was known 
as "Turnagain Alley" as there was then no 
outlet into Newbury, now Washington, Street. 
An entrance to the Washington Gardens in 1826 
from Newbury Street was known as Washington 
Court. In 1830, just before Swan's death, the 
estate was cut up into ten lots. Tradition states 
that the Usher mansion was removed to South 
Boston and in whole or part became the "Fire 
Department Hotel" kept by Reed Taft and 
known later as the "City Point Hotel." The es- 
tate contained an acre and forty perches or square 
rods, nearly fifty-five thousand square feet. A 
century ago the value of the entire tract was 
$15,000. At the present time the valuation of 
this site is from $150 to $200 
per square foot, or approximately 
$9,000,000. 

October 14th, 1830, the north 
corner of the Gardens was the scene 
of an event important to the Ma- 
sonic fraternity. The corner stone 
of the Masonic Temple was laid 
on that day by Joseph Jenldns, 
Grand Master of the Grand Lodge 
125 




Amos Bbonson Alcott 







.f' 






An Historic Corner 



of Massachusetts. Mr. Jenkins was a carpenter 
and builder by trade, and in 1820 had built in 
New Orleans the Custom Hcuse, a great part of 
the woodwork of which he had prepared in his 
workshop in Boston and shipped by water. 

The erection of the Masonic Temple led to a 
change of name for Turnagain Alley; it became 
Temple Court and later Temple Place. For a 
week, in 1865, it was known as Autumn Street, 
and in the summer of 1869, for two months, it 
was called Avon Street. 

The exterior of the "Temple" needs no descrip- 
tion; it has been pictured in many views during 
the past seventy-five years. In the basement or 
first story was a chapel and two school rooms; in 
the second story a lecture room seating 1,000 
persons. In the third story were two halls seat- 
ing 400 and 200. In the top story was Mason's 
Hall, a drawing room and rooms accommodating 
different lodges. The cost of this building of 
"rubble granite" was about $50,000, including 
the cost of the land. 

This building is of especial 
interest because it was iden- 
tified with Emerson and Alcott. 
In 1834 Amos Bronson Alcott 
established a school room in 7 
Masonic Temple. His first as- 
sistant, Elizabeth Peabody, 
has in her "Record of a 
School " given the story of the 
new departure in Boston's 
127 




Maroaket Ftjlleb 
(Marchioness Ossou) 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

school system by Alcott's educational venture. 
Later, in 1836, Margaret Fuller (afterwards Mar- 
chioness Ossoli) assisted in French and Latin as a 
teacher. 

In 1838 the scholars left abruptly. This re- 




Ralph Waldo Emerson 

suited from an incident which indicates the anti- 
slavery agitation then existing inBoston. Alcott 
admitted to his school that year a colored girl; 
this caused the withdrawal of all his pupils, 
except his own daughters, and the school closed 
in 1839. 

128 



i 




Richard H. Stearns 



An Historic Corner 

It was in the Masonic Temple, in 1837, that 
Emerson gave his course of lectures on history, 
art, science, literature, politics, and religion. To 
this famous course, the Lowell Institute Lectures 
(founded in 1839), succeeded. Later the Swiss 
Bell Ringers gave their concerts in the Temple. 




Judge John Lowell 

On October 7th, 1858, the Masonic Temple was 
sold to the Federal Government for a court house. 
The court moved from Bowdoin Square, where 
its sessions had been held for two years in the 
old Parkman mansion. 

Nathan Clifford presided over the Circuit Court. 
9 129 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

He was an associate justice of the Supreme Court 
of the United States. The Federal District 
Court was presided over by Peleg Sprague, who 
was succeeded bj' John Lowell who was appointed 
by President Lincoln on the 11th of March, 1865. 

The old Masonic Temple was destined to ex- 
periopce one more radical change. After its 
original use for nearly thirty years and the follow- 
ing period of almost thirty years as the seat of 
the United States Court, the Federal Government 
in 1885 sold the building at auction. It was 
bought by the estate of the late William F. Weld, 
the trustees having already effected plans for 
remodeling the building and having executed a 
contract with R. H. Stearns & Company to lease 
the property if secured. The remodeled building 
was occupied by the new tenant in the summer of 
1886 and continued as their place of business until 
1908, when it was completely torn down and the 
present modern building erected and occupied in 
the fall of the following year. 

The business of R. H. Stearns and Company 
was founded in 1847 by Richard H. Stearns, 
who was born in Ashburnham, Mass., December 
25, 1824. Soon after his birth, his parents 
removed to New Ipswich, N. H. Left an orphan 
at the age of seven, he was taken to Lincoln, 
Mass., and brought up by his uncle. His educa- 
tion was secured in district schools, and from 
attending for one year Phillips Academy, An- 
dover, after which for a time he taught school. 

He once remarked that he began to earn his 
130 




Tremont Street and Temple Place, 1914 
(Present store of R. H. Stearns and Company) 



An Historic Corner 



own living at the age of seven; meaning, doubt- 
less, that even in childhood he was compelled 
to make full return in labor upon the farm for 
board and clothing. His first business experience 
was selling from house to house on Beacon Hill, 
a load of potatoes which he had brought from 
Lincoln to Boston in an ox team. 

In 1846 he moved to Boston and found em- 
ployment in the store of C. C. Burr. A little 
more than a year later he began business for 
himself, opening a small store under the old 
Adams House on Washington Street. This was 
the obscure beginning of the present successful 
business, in which the founder took a vital in- 
terest until his death in his 85th year. At that 
time Hon, John D. Long, formerly governor of 
Massachusetts, who had known and esteemed Mr. 
Stearns for many years, thus summed up the 
qualities and achievements of his friend: 

His record as a citizen, public and private, commands 
universal respect. His private life was such, abounding in 
charity and good influence so exemplary of the virtues of 
true citizenship, that it was in itself a public life. I knew 
him in the legislature of 1875, in social and civic relations, 
and in his business as a leading merchant of Boston. There 
was no walk in which his steps were not taken in honor, 
truth and righteousness. 

It is an interesting fact that, although this 
business has occupied five different buildings dur- 
ing its existence of 67 years, all were located within 
two and one half blocks of the present store. 
This stability of location in the retail trade seems 
131 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

to be more marked in Boston than in any other 
city in the United States. Some years since, 
when the building of the subway under Tremont 
Street, and the consequent removal of street cars 
from the surface was under consideration, Mr. 
Stearns sought the opinion of a well-known 
builder as to the probable effect on retail trade in 
the vicinity, who made this reply: "We cannot 
move the center of Boston. It was made by the 
Lord, and fixed for all time." 



In these pages there have now been traced some 
of the changes since the founding of Boston which 
have occurred on and about the small tract of 
land which today forms the corner of Tremont 
Street and Temple Place. From that far-away 
period when it was bounded by a cow path and 
when the house of Usher faced on a winding 
country road from which led " Turnagain Alley, " 
we have come at length to the active business 
district of a great city, thronged daily by thou- 
sands of its own citizens and those of its populous 
suburbs. If the shadowy forms of Hezekiah 
Usher and Waitstill Winthrop could rise from the 
goodly company of Puritans beneath the sod and 
visit the Boston of today, the headstones in King's 
Chapel Burying Ground would alone offer a 
suggestion of their town and time. 



132 



OLD BOSTON BANKS 

And Their Relation to Local and 
National Development* 

Capital tends to accumulate in old and pros- 
perous communities. Early in the history of the 
North American Colonies, New York, Philadel- 
phia and Boston, because of advantageous loca- 
tion and strong and resourceful citizenship, be- 
came the leading communities in population and 
wealth. Hence these three historic seaboard 
cities which were indeed the only cities worthy 
to be so called at the close of the Revolution, be- 
came at once the nation's financial centers. This 
supremacy they have steadily maintained during 
more than a century of the nation's unparalleled 
growth. Laboring each in its own way, Boston, 
New York and Philadelphia together have fin- 
anced the development of American resources. 

Banks and Banking in Old Boston 

Each decade in the swift moving industrial life 
of the republic has brought m.arked changes, and 
some of those which have affected or developed 
the policies of the financial institutions of Boston 
are of especial interest, as they clearly reflect the 
progress of state and nation. 

Boston may be said always to have been a 
prosperous community. In early Colonial days 

*From information supplied by Francis R. Hart, Vice Chairman of 
the Board of Directors of the Old Colony Trust Company. 

133 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

there were, it is true, periods of discouragement 
but by the close of the Revolution foreign trade 
had brought success to many Boston merchants. 
The establishment of banks followed the accum- 
ulation of capital. There were two in 1794. 
The first local institution was the Massachusetts 
Bank which began business July 5, 1784, with 
a capital of $300,000, and in 1792 the Union 
Bank was established. In 1819 there were seven 
banks in Boston with a capital of $7,300,000; in 
1825 nineteen, with a capital of $10,300,000. 

The cautious and conservative policies which 
characterized the management of the early banks, 
seem to have been impressed upon later gener- 
ations of bankers and the record of Boston banking 
makes it plain that those institutions which have 
earned the confidence of the community have sel- 
dom betrayed it. In consequence, each genera- 
tion of bankers has stood for that which was 
best in its time, such as the prompt redemption 
of unreliable currency with a minimum of expense 
to the holders; the resumption of specie payments, 
and opposition to all forms of inflation. 

In 1847 there were twenty-six banks in Boston 
(thirteen of which had been chartered at least 
twenty-five years) with a total capitalization of 
approximately $21,000,000, and all of which were 
paying dividends ranging from six to ten per 
cent. Three years later the number of banks 
had increased to thirty, having total resources of 
$42,718,431. 

For possibly a little more than a century the 
134 



Old Boston Banks 



accumulated capital of the citizens of Boston has 
amounted to an impressive total. Within that 
period it has found employment in three dis- 
tinct ways — in local development, in national de- 
velopment and in industrial development. In a 
broad sense there are also three distinct periods to 
these investment policies. 

Local Uses of Capital 

Prior to 1850, no demands were made to finance 
distant enterprises. Boston, like other cities at 
that period, was more or less isolated. It was 
interested in itself and in its near neighbors, but 
when judged by our present standards, the city 
had very limited intercourse with other parts of 
the country. The early citizens of the city were 
men of clear vision who had faith in their com- 
munity. In consequence, Boston capital found 
an outlet in local enterprises. They invested 
their savings in Boston docks, buildings and 
bridges. They built highways, reclaimed marshes 
and cut down Beacon Hill. 

The close of the decade from 1840 to 1850, 
which marked the beginning of the end of Bos- 
ton's early foreign trade, marked also the close of 
the period of investment in distinctly local enter- 
prises. New uses for money had begun to appear, 
especially the railroad, which was to become a 
factor of supreme importance in the affairs of the 
city, state and nation, and likewise a mighty con- 
sumer of capital. Moreover, though naturally 
built first in the old settled communities, railroads 
135 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

had even greater reason for existence as arteries to 
the frontier. Thus it came about that with the 
resumption of national development after the 
Civil War, the call came to Boston for financial 
assistance in distant railway construction. This 
marked the beginning of the second general poHcy 
in connection with the employment of capital. 

Railway Building 

Unlike the whalers and the clipper ships of an 
earlier day, of which traditions alone remain, 
the great railway enterprises which Boston 
bankers and merchants brought into being during 
the period from 1850 to 1890 are today a colossal 
monument to the courage of their promoters. 
These men supplied the funds which built rail- 
roads to the prairie states across the Rocky Moun- 
tains through the Northwest, even to the 
Pacific and into Mexico. It was Boston capital 
that made possible the Union Pacific, the Atchi- 
son, Topeka & Santa Fe, Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy, the Oregon railroads, Flint & Pere Mar- 
quette, Mexican Central, and many others. 
With sagacity and vision greater and clearer 
than even their fathers possessed, the men of 
Boston laid rails through the wilderness and 
opened the great West. 

Clearly this was a distinct period. Like the 
education of a son who later becomes strong, the 
West justified the investment even though profits 
were not always at once assured. Boston had 
opened the gates to an empire. Marvelous has 
138 



Old Boston Bank 



been the growth of the enterprises so courage- 
ously financed. Yet the appeal of the West to 
construct railroads was merely the call of a new 
country for aid. This was obviously a temporary 
requirement. Struggling roads which at first 
often terminated at frontier settlements have now 
become colossal transcontinental systems, no 
longer requiring the aid or even the counsel of 
the financial parents. 

Meantime the third great use for the accum- 
ulated resources of the banks of Boston was fast 
developing. The new requirement afforded a 
permanent and normal outlet for a vast aggregate 
of capital. 

Industrial Expansion 

A grave situation had been developing in 
New England. By its activity in constructing 
railways to the prairies and the Pacific coast, 
Boston had materially hastened the collapse, for 
a time at least, of New England agriculture by the 
competition of the more fertile western prairies. 
Undismayed, however. New England turned to 
manufacturing, and with justice demanded the 
assistance of Boston capital. 

From 1850 to 1914 agriculture in the six New 
England states has in some respects made no 
progress whatever. Farms are substantially the 
same in number in 1914 as they were half a 
century ago. This is equally true of the number 
of persons employed on them. Cultivated acres 
have decreased and while the total products of 
137 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

farms have about doubled in value, this is princi- 
pally due to higher prices. In manufacturing, 
however, the change has been so extraordinary 
that it becomes difficult to comprehend. In 1850 
there were 183,000 men and 115,000 women em- 
ployed in all industries in the six New England 
states, receiving about seventy-two million dol- 
lars in wages. Capital invested in manufactures 
amounted to $160,000,000 and annual products 
were valued at $275,000,000. 

From 1850 to 1910 population in New England 
increased two and a half times, but the number 
of persons engaged solely in manufactures quad- 
rupled. They received nearly six hundred mil- 
lions of dollars in wages. The capital invested 
amounted to two and a half billions of dollars, 
and products were valued annually at a little 
over two and a half billions of dollars. 

The magnitude of industrial growth and the 
changed relationship of capital to value of product 
suggest the permanent opportunity and duty 
that came to the bankers of Boston after the 
great task of financing the railways of the West 
was approaching completion. It was the call of 
their own blood. Innumerable new industrial 
enterprises located in all parts of New England 
sought for capital. Even more insistent were 
the well-established enterprises which were enter- 
ing upon a policy of expansion. Some industrial 
concerns now represent greater investment than 
did many of the western railroads at their beginning. 

Creation and expansion, however, in a sense 
138 




Massachusetts Bank in 



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First National Bank in 1914 
(Successor of the Massachusetts Bank) 



Old Boston Banks 



would resemble the western railroad situation, 
and afford but temporary use for capital. There 
was another more urgent and recurrent use. 
Upkeep of costly plants, high wages and increased 
cost of materials together with enormous pur- 
chases of raw material demand constantly more 
capital to conduct prosperous enterprises, and 
here the comparison between the figures of 1850 
and those of 1910 tell the story: In 1850 for 
each $1000 of capital invested in manufactures 
in New England, there were products valued at 
$1,720. In 1910 each dollar invested was merely 
equivalent to the same amount in value of prod- 
ucts. This change of proportion means that 
if goods could have been produced as cheaply 
in 1910 as in 1850, the same value of products 
could have been secured with one billion dollars 
less capital. 

The early uses of Boston capital here traced 
were obviously a part of the great scheme of 
development. The third and later use may be 
considered as the natural and permanent outlet 
for a generous share of the resources of a great 
and prosperous community. 

The Banks of Boston in 1914 

From the two banks of 1794 the number in 
Boston had increased in 1914 to sixty-two, 
divided between sixteen national banks, twenty- 
four trust companies, and twenty-two savings 
banks. The resources of the national banks 
has aggregated $372,000,000 and of the trust com- 
139 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 



panies $265,000,000, while deposits in the savings 
banks amounted to $280,000,000, the total 
resources of these three classes of Boston 
banks reaching the huge total of $917,000,000. 

Several of the more important banks of Boston 
were numbered in the group of strong institutions 
chartered in the first third of the last century, 
although in some instances consohdation has 
altered the early names. 

The present First National Bank is the succes- 
sor of the pioneer bank of Boston, the Massa- 
chusetts,' chartered in 1784, This historic insti- 
tution was merged with the First National Bank 
in 1903. In 1847 the capital was $800,000, sur- 
plus and deposits $411,000. In 1914 the capital 
had increased to $5,000,000 and the surplus and 
deposits to $90,000,000. Something of the city's 
growth and wealth is suggested by these figures. 
The National Union Bank 
is the oldest of all Boston 
banks in the sense of un- 
broken existence under the 
same name. Established in 
1792, it began business in a 
private residence on State 
Street. As tenant or owner 
it has occupied the same site 
ever since, a continuous resi- 
dence of one hundred and 
twenty-two years, — the pres- 
ent building being erected in 
1826. 




Old Boston Banks 



In 1793, six months after its establishment, 
the directors declared the first dividend (4 per 
cent.) and semi-annual dividends have been de- 
clared from that date to the present time, without 
interruption. In this record the bank is unique 
among American financial institutions. In 1847 
its capital was $800,000, and its surplus and de- 
posits were $1,402,194. In 1914 the capital and 
surplus were $2,000,000 and the total resources 
$12,723,265. 

The Merchants National Bank was established 
as a state bank in 1831. It occupied the old 
United States Bank building on State Street and 
the present Merchants Bank building is located 
on the same site. In 1847 the total resources 
were $6,820,000, which had grown in 1914 to the 
generous figure of $46,000,000. 

Largest of all Boston national 
banks, the Shawmut has attained 
that position in part through 
successful management and in part 
by consolidation. It was estab- 
lished as a state bank in 1837. The 
paid up capital in 1847 was 
$500,000, and total resources 
amounted to $1,212,729. 

In 1914 capital and surplus 
amounted to $15,000,000 and total resources 
exceeded $116,000,000. 

Among the trust companies, a form of bank- 
ing enterprise which has now become very im- 
portant, the Old Colony leads in magnitude 
141 




Days and Ways in Old Boston 

of resources and influence. This great institution 
was established in 1890, and in 1914, with two 
branches and ten distinct departments, it reported 
resources of over $100,000,000. 

This review of the development of bank- 
ing and investment, especially since 1847, would 
not be complete without reference to manifesta- 
tions of the early investment tendencies of the 
fathers among the Boston financiers of today. 
Inheritance of property naturally brings with it 
conservatism. The skill and daring with which 
the founder of a fortune risked his all and won 
may not be inherited by his sons and grandsons, 
and whether it is or not, new conditions and 
lack of the necessity for aggressive action all 
result in lessened initiative and increased caution. 

Naturally in Boston, which has large inherited 
wealth, these conditions are plainly observed. 
Usually they tend to make a community non- 
progressive, to dishearten the active and ambi- 
tious, and to drive such men to more congenial 
communities, but fortunately for Boston the old 
aggressive spirit of the pioneer appears in these 
later generations, as though a racial instinct were 
manifesting itself. The whalers and the foreign 
trade have vanished, but the United Fruit Com- 
pany, a venture in an untried field, was launched 
by Boston interests and with its fleets and plan- 
tations lias made a great commercial success. 

The researches of a famous Harvard scientist 
suggested that copper mines offered a vast and 
profitable field. The Calumet and Hecla and 
142 




Court Street Showing Old Colony Trust Compani 



Old Boston Banks 



many other great copper mines developed by 
Boston capital secured for the city preeminence 
as the financial center of the copper industry. 
Boston and New England financed and developed 
the telephone and later in partnership with New 
York bore a large part of the burden of es- 
tablishing all over the United States this colossal 
and supremely necessary enterprise. 

Finally, groups of Boston capitalists have in- 
vested great sums of distant industrial or public 
service development. Working through banking 
interests, but particularly through enterprises 
organized and conducted for the purpose, they 
have aided new cities and states to obtain inter- 
urban electric railway service and light and power 
facilities. Stone and Webster, the principal Bos- 
ton firm in this field, have become nation-wide 
in their operations. They have been the me- 
dium for the investment of more than one hundred 
and fifty millions of dollars, and have developed 
inter-urban electric railways and light and power 
companies, along Puget Sound (in particular 
about Bellingham and between Everett, Seattle 
and Tacoma) ; along the Gulf of Mexico from 
Houston, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida; elsewhere 
in Texas; in Nevada, Michigan, Georgia; in many 
older states in the East and the Middle West, 
and even as far as Cape Breton and Porto Rico. 
In all, this firm has organized and started on 
prosperous careers sixty-seven corporations, each 
of which is proving of the utmost value and im- 
portance to the community it serves. Together 
143 



2 4/--'- 



Days and Ways in Old Boston 

they represent a capitalization of more than 
$186,000,000. 

Thus the farsighted policies of old Boston for 
the application of capital to development still 
persist. Some of the leaders in advancing these 
present-day projects are descendants of the old- 
time merchants who owned the clipper ships of the 
fifties, or financed the western railways, and so a 
generous share of the capital and the profits of the 
Boston of the earlier periods is still at work today 
aiding at many distant points the national de- 
velopment. 

True to the traditional policy of Boston, these 
chains of widely scattered enterprises have not 
been mere promotions or schemes of corporate 
consolidation, but have created public utilities of 
incalculable importance. 

A century and a third have now elapsed since 
the beginning of the republic. Upon every page 
of national development appears the evidence 
of the courage and aid of the three cities with 
which the United States began her career as a 
nation. Of these three, Boston, in proportion 
to population, can claim fairly to have surpassed 
the others in the great achievement of nation 
building. 



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144 



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